


small town monsters

by howimetyourmulder (skuls)



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adrian Mellon Lives, Alternate Universe - X-Files Fusion, Conspiracy Theories, F/M, Flashbacks, M/M, not an exact translation lol, the ridiculous x files au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 62,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23109697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/howimetyourmulder
Summary: Eddie Kaspbrak and Richie Tozier -- longtime members of the Loser's Club of 1989, the FBI's most unwanted, and heads of the infamous X Files unit -- find themselves (alongside their conspiracy theorist friends) called back to their hometown of Derry, Maine after 27 years, to search for the truth about what happened to Georgie Denbrough, and to try to fill in the missing memories of the summer of 1989.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so this is the ridiculous x files au i've been thinking about for a couple weeks. i had the idea months ago, i figured out how to execute it a couple weeks ago, and the idea stuck in my head until i had to write it down. 
> 
> it isn't necessary to watch the x files to understand this, since i've mostly just borrowed x files plot points and modified them for the it universe. canon is pretty similar here, except for government conspiracies and different kinds of memory loss. 
> 
> for anyone who hasn't seen the x files and wants a run down: the show is about two FBI agents who run a unit that explores unexplained phenomena, one of whom is deeply motivated from the abduction of his sister when he was a kid. it's full of fun horror tropes and government conspiracies and lots of pain to characters and the audience, and it's one of my favorite shows of all time. mulder and scully are the ultimate pining slow burn romance lol. if anyone DOES like the x files, i have written lots and lots of fic for it. 
> 
> in terms of x files characters, they don't really translate exactly into roles for the it characters, so i took some liberties. (bill is supposed to be one of the lone gunmen, but he's also very muldery, for example.)
> 
> warning up front for some references to child disappearances.

**One.**

_Case #X-13458, Derry, Maine_

_October, 1988_

_George Elmer Denbrough, born 1981_

_Status: Unsolved_

_Witness Statement as reported by William Denbrough, March 3, 2011: “My brother disappeared on a rainy October afternoon. I was sick and couldn’t leave the house, but he wanted to go out and play, so I helped him make a paper boat. He disappeared while he was out playing with the boat. I don’t know where he went. He hugged me goodbye and left; I saw him run down the street to the right of our house, and he never came home again._

_“Here’s what I do know: police showed up on Witcham Street twenty minutes after Georgie left the house. A neighbor woman saw blood in the streets and called them. They didn’t know whose blood it was. She knew she had seen a kid in a yellow rain slicker crouching out in the street, and when she looked back, he was gone and there was blood all over the place. Georgie left the house in a yellow slicker. Nobody made the connection until my mom and I realized that Georgie hadn’t come home three hours later. First she called all of Georgie’s friends’ houses to make sure he wasn’t there, and then she called the police, and then they figured it out._

_“Three days after Georgie disappeared, I overheard men talking to my mother. They said they were from the government. They told her to forget about Georgie, that he was dead, and they shouldn’t keep looking for him. They made it sound like a threat. A couple days after that, my parents told me that Georgie was dead, and we were going to have to let him go. They decided to have a funeral. They wouldn’t listen when I argued. My father shouted at me when I brought up the men who had come to the house. He told me not to talk about it, or Georgie going missing again._

_“Here’s what else I know: I started asking around town to see what people remembered about when Georgie disappeared. Most wouldn’t talk to me or my friends, but an old man who lived on Witcham told me about what he remembered about the day Georgie disappeared._

_"It was cloudy that day, because it was raining. But he told me he remembered voices from the sewer and lights in the sky.”_

\---

Distrusting the government doesn't come naturally. It happens gradually. Or at least it happened gradually for Richie. (More gradually than his belief in monsters and aliens, he thinks.)

Maybe it should've happened faster, considering the way adults are in Derry. From passiveness to outright ignoring everything, adults have never been fucking helpful, and that's before the government agents swooped down out of the goddamn sky to start running interference in everything. It's fucked up. And it's also probably fucked up that Richie ended up _becoming_ one of the men in black figures he used to be scared of when he was a kid. Life is weird as shit. And besides, Bill is always telling Richie that he's better than those assholes they knew when they were kids, because _he's_ trying to make a difference instead of covering shit up. 

If Richie wanted, he could pin the whole thing on Bill. Say it's his fault. His thirteenth year is pretty fucking blurry, but he thinks he remembers _actually_ blaming it all on Bill at one point, believing that it was entirely his fault. 

But he doesn't think he can put all of it on Bill, even if he tries. Bill has told him a million times since childhood that he doesn't have to keep doing this stuff, so he's had about a million outs. And Richie thinks he's held on this long for reasons besides Bill. He's got plenty of anger of his own. The missing thirteenth year sticks with him, significantly so, just like everything those fuckers did that he still remembers. Everything that has happened since. It's been his decisions, largely his decisions. Even if it's never what anyone expected him to do. Richie used to tell everyone as a kid that he wanted to be a ventriloquist when he grew up. How the fuck did he end up in the FBI? Maybe they played too much cops and robbers as kids. 

Distrusting the government is a process, but Richie can remember when it started. He doesn't remember much, but he remembers that. It was a couple days after Georgie disappeared. He and Eddie and Stan were over at Bill's, because where else could they go? They needed to be there for Bill, and they all knew it, so they all got up first thing to slog over through the endless rain to sit with Bill, or to go look with him, if that was what he wanted. Eddie fought with his mom about it that morning; Richie waited on the porch for him, rubbing water from his glasses lens with his equally wet shirt because he never carried an umbrella, and he could hear the yelling from inside, until Eddie finally shoved his way outside. That was how important it was, that Eddie would yell at Mrs. K over it. 

They were over at Bill's, sitting in the pantry, because that seemed to be somewhere Bill felt safe. Maybe because it was a place they hid a lot during hide and seek as kids, or because they used to sit in the pantry during sleepovers and sneak all the Oreos, till Mrs. Denbrough caught them. ("T-t-they can't h-h-h-hear us in here," he said one time when Stan asked, his voice trembling. The stutter got worse, in those days after Georgie, and he always seemed to be avoiding his parents. Richie thinks he blames himself.) Anyways, they were in the pantry, sitting around Bill while he pretended he wasn't crying, when they heard the voices. Someone at the door. Mrs. Denbrough answering, her voice numb and furious and teary all at once: "What do you want?" And the man—or men; Richie can never remember—said, "Hi, Mrs. Denbrough. We're from the government. Can we come in?"

They talked in the kitchen. Richie remembers huddling with the guys in the pantry, light off, eyes glued to the door, and listening to every word. They'd told Mrs. Denbrough to let it go. To forget about Georgie, about looking for him. "He's dead, Mrs. Denbrough," they said. "The sooner you let it go, the better your lives will be." Richie remembers thinking it sounded like a threat. 

Bill had been furious, breathing hard beside them and crying silently, and he'd almost shouted out loud when they told Mrs. Denbrough that Georgie was dead. Had almost gotten up and busted out of the pantry. Richie remembers Stan had stopped him, clapped a hand over his mouth and held it there until they were gone. Kept Bill from running out. He remembers thinking that Stan was smart, that they didn't want to be caught listening in to this conversation. 

Mrs. Denbrough had cried, loudly, insisting Georgie wasn't dead, while Bill cried silently behind Stan's hand. The government men had asked to speak to Mr. Denbrough. And when they were gone, when Stan had taken his hand away, Bill had wiped his eyes with the back of one hand and said in a firm voice, "He's n-n-not dead."

The remaining three of them had stared at each other, unsure of what to say. Eddie had grabbed onto Richie's arm when the government men started talking about Georgie, and he still hadn't let go, fingers digging into his skin. Stan didn't say anything. Neither did Richie, because he didn't know _what_ to say. He wasn't sure what he believed. They said blood was all over the streets. 

Eddie was actually the first to speak, loosening his grip on Richie's arm. He said, "Bill…"

"He's _not_ dead," Bill said, his voice rising desperately. He looked towards the door and back, his hands curled into fists. "They're hiding something."

\---

It's been over twenty-seven years since Georgie's death, and Richie isn't sure how much he's improved since then. His career aspirations certainly haven't. His dad used to say that ventriloquism was a fruitless pursuit, but what is he supposed to say now? "Oh, what got you interested in the FBI?" "Funny you should ask! I'm looking for the truth about the disappearance of my friend's brother, who disappeared twenty-seven years ago. I don't even _like_ the FBI!"

Okay, it's unfair to say that he hates _all_ of it. There are some perks, he supposes. But the work is depressing and dangerous (which drives his mom nuts), and the people are kind of assholes, and the fact that he works in a weird unit doesn't help. People are always calling him shit like "Spooky" or "The Comedian" or "Trashmouth," which has _somehow_ caught on here. (Bill and Mike think it's hilarious.) Luckily, twelve years of name-calling in school has made Richie pretty much immune, but _still_. He didn't anticipate being an outcast his entire life. The Loser's Club wasn't meant to be so literal. 

The reputation comes from the unit he's in, which is the one that Bill found years ago. The work that comes with this unit is weird as shit, but it's probably one of the only things Richie actually likes about his job. It's much more exciting to think of himself as, like, a ghost and alien hunter instead of a shitty FBI agent. It's the X-Files unit, and it's got a wide reputation across the Bureau for being a waste of time. ("Which is perfect," says Richie, often, "because I am a perfect time-waster.") Bill found it in the midst of research in the Academy, and insisted it was the one. He and Richie had gone into the Academy together at first, but Bill had dropped out, either because someone above was running interference (Mike and Bill's theory), or because Bill wasn't cut out for it. Maybe both. Bill's a writer now, writing horror novels and in his spare time, a conspiracy theory newspaper he co-authors with Mike and Ben, of all people. And Richie stayed at the FBI, maybe out of obligation to Bill, or to himself, out of fury over the years of lost memories—or maybe out of frustration after years of failed pursuits, and people telling him that a career in comedy was pretty pointless. He stayed, and after a couple years of paper pushing, he finally got his request to open the X-Files accepted. And that was when the whole thing started. 

It's been a pretty crazy road, all things considered. Richie has always been able to piss off authority figures, it's a long held talent, but this is a new kind of pissed off authority figures. They've been trying to shut him down for years, claiming irresponsibility (maybe), claiming a waste of Bureau funds (maybe, but what better use is there for that shit?), claiming uselessness (not if Bill is right—and Richie does believe that Bill is right). And when that shit didn't work, they made their biggest mistake yet. They assigned _Eddie Kaspbrak_ —secret badass, certified member of the Loser's Club, and Richie's best friend from ages five to thirteen—to debunk his work. The teachers always made the same mistake, too. Everyone skips over what a little terror Eddie is, especially when he and Richie are working together. 

The short version of the story is this: Richie and Eddie were pretty inseparable till that messy, messy summer they turned thirteen, and forgot most of what happened. Government agents, disappearing kids, weird lights, the whole shebang. And then government agents did some weird shit and took Eddie home to his mom and freaked her the fuck out, and she snatched up Eddie and moved away before the summer was over. And aside from letters for a couple years, Richie didn't talk to him until three years ago, when they assigned a Dr. Kaspbrak to the X-Files and basically shot themselves in the fucking foot. And Eddie and Richie got reacquainted, became a badass cryptid fighting team, and lived happily ever after. Or some shit like that. 

The long version is a lot more complicated, involves a few near death experiences, a lot of memory gaps, and also some very confusing feelings from when Richie was thirteen that have sprung up again. But he tends to ignore that version. He doesn't like to tell it anyway. 

\---

The whole thing starts—well, starts a second time—in Florida when Eddie answers a call from Bill. This isn't totally abnormal—Bill calls them a lot on cases, but he doesn't usually call on cases that don't relate to aliens or strange disappearances. But still, they only ever get calls from their boss or Bill (or Ben and Mike, but they usually don't call on cases), and Richie (having lost the coin toss) wrote the report on this case and sent it in an hour ago. So he pretty much knows that it's Bill when the phone rings. "That Big Bill?" he says from beneath the tent of one arm, sprawled on his claimed hotel bed. "He knows we were chasing Mothmen, right?"

"I thought you said that the Mothman was native to West Virginia," says Eddie, picking up the phone. 

"Well, what the fuck else do you call those things?" Richie says, moving his arm to make a face at Eddie and pitching his voice up to imitate him. "I thought they weren't _real_ , anyways." 

Eddie rolls his eyes and answers the phone, putting it on speaker. "Hey, Bill, what's up?" 

"Eddie, hey," Bill says, his voice shaking on the other end, in the way that either means he's beyond excited or scared shitless. "I-is Richie there? Are you guys in the field?"

"Look at the civilian, using the big fancy Fed terms," Richie says in a honey-sweet mocking Voice, standing up so that he can flop onto Eddie's bed. Eddie shoves at him a little, distractedly, and grabs the phone before it slides off of the mattress. 

"Beep beep, Richie," Bill says, his tone entirely too somber. "I w-w-wanted to make sure you guys were okay to talk, and not… get eaten by Bigfoot or something like that."

"We would _never_ ," says Richie, starting to get nervous. He hasn't really heard Bill sound like this in a while. His childhood stutter really only appears when _he_ is nervous. "Even if I drop _my_ gun a lot, Agent Spaghetti over here keeps _his_ hanging from his wrist like kiddie mittens…"

"What's going on, Bill?" Eddie cuts in. He looks nervous, too, in a way he never really looks unless one of them almost dies on a case, or the one time when Richie first took him to see Bill and Mike and Ben and figure out how much he remembered from the summer of 1989. 

There's a shuffling sound on the other end, and then the faint sound of Mike's voice: "You need to just tell them, Bill, you're freaking them out." Bill says, "Okay, okay, you're right," and sighs a little. Then he says, "Guys, kids are going missing in Derry again." 

Eddie gasps a little, dropping the phone all over again. Richie kind of goes out of focus, in his lopsided position lying half on Eddie's bed. There's a rushing sound in his ears; he's twelve and sitting on his bed again with his mom's hand on his shoulder as she explained: _Georgie Denbrough went missing last night. Out in the rainstorm._ He wouldn't hear the rumors until the next day, rumors that were probably true— _blood on the street… lights in the sky… blood in the sewers_ —but his mom's soft, sympathetic voice was enough to shake him to his core. He couldn't stop thinking that if _she_ was scared, it must really be bad. Like Georgie wasn't just hiding out in the woods somewhere; like he was really hurt, or gone forever. Other kids would go missing after Georgie, but Richie didn't really remember them going missing—it was all foggy, like the rest of that summer. And besides, Georgie was the one who had hurt the worst. He'd been like a little brother to all of them, really.

"What do you mean?" he says faintly. "Kids going missing… Kids go missing every day, Bill." It's probably harsh, but Richie thinks he's reserved the right to be harsh; he's been chasing this for years. Bill finds cases that look like Georgie's—mostly cases of alien abduction, because that's what Bill thinks happened to Georgie—and Richie goes looking for them. One of his first cases on the job was a missing girl in Iowa, abducted during a camping trip, to the horror of her mom and brother. But that girl came home. 

"I mean, it's the same as Georgie, and all those other kids who disappeared in Derry," says Bill. "Betty Ripsom, Ed Corcoran, Patrick Hockstetter… they disappeared without a trace, like Georgie. Their bodies were found, but Georgie's never was. Don't you remember?"

Richie shoves his glasses up to rub at his eyes. He couldn't remember the names. Eddie says tremblingly, "Come on, Bill, you know we don't."

"Right. You're right, I'm sorry," Bill says. He sighs again and adds, "Someone's been sending me stuff again. Shoving newspaper articles under my door. Newspapers from _Derry_."

"That your crackhead informant who watched _All The President's Men_ too many times?" Richie croaks. "Blow Job Ron?"

"Deep Throat," Mike corrects on the other end. He's the only one who has actually seen the mysterious dude. Not even Ben or Bill have seen him. "Richie…"

"What did the articles _say_ , Bill?" Eddie asks, tensely, his jaw tightening. "You said kids are disappearing?"

Eddie might've been more scared than Richie was, after Georgie disappeared. He didn't want to walk home alone after school. Richie used to walk with him, all the way to Mrs. K's porch, even though it doubled his travel time, because he felt safer with the company, too. That first week or two, they walked mostly in silence, shoulder to shoulder, kicking rocks in the empty silence. Maybe it was an overreaction, but Richie didn't want to let Eddie walk home alone, and then find out the next day that he had disappeared and it'd been _his_ fault because he left Eddie _alone…_ Eddie must've felt the same way because he started trying to talk Mrs. K into driving Richie home after their walks home even though she hated his guts. They'd both been on edge, and the dusk or midnight searches for Georgie weren't helping anything. Eddie had come to school for nearly two weeks with huge circles under his eyes, like he wasn't sleeping.

"Three gone without a trace. Two more who disappeared and whose bodies reappeared a couple weeks later," Bill says. "One mother mentions being out hanging laundry on a windy day and going inside for a minute. She thought her daughter was just playing in the blowing sheets, but she couldn't find any trace of her when she came outside…"

"M.O. fits, I guess," Richie says quietly, maybe a little bitterly. He's been repeatedly blocked from looking at Georgie's casefile from the Derry PD, but he knows the case inside and out. He was _there_ , for fuck's sake. He doesn't know why he's reacting this way. It's not like he ever _likes_ child disappearance or murder cases—who the fuck would? He hates them, they make him throw up, make him wanna leave the FBI forever, he way prefers the ghost and monster cases. But he's dealt with them before. Looking for cases like Georgie's, of alien abduction or anything else that might be responsible, he's come across a lot, and he's never reacted like this. Eddie, either. This isn't _normal._

"We have reason to think this might be happening again," Mike says on the other end. Bill must've put the phone on speaker. Ben adds, "Unfortunately," in a grim voice, and Richie gets a faint, unusual twinge of memory: baby Ben, serious in front of them, presenting a horrifying history lesson. This has happened before, he's told them more than once. Makes sense it'd happen again. 

"Okay," Richie croaks, and he shoves his glasses up again to rub at his eyes. "Okay, so we'll come back. We've gotta come back, right? Figure out what to do next? Eds?" He looks up at Eddie, who is staring down at him like he isn't sure what to do next. Richie swallows and looks back down at the phone. "Have you told Stan yet?" he asks, quieter this time. 

Silence on the other end. Then Ben says, "We, uh… we thought we should hold off. You know Stan never really wants to get involved in this stuff."

"Besides, I think he and Patty are going to Buenos Aires," Mike adds. 

"Yeah. Right, okay." Richie stands and goes for his suitcase, dutifully unpacked and leaning up against the wall. Eddie always unpacks and makes full use of the hotel dresser, but Richie never does; he thinks it's hilarious that Eddie does, considering they never know if a case is gonna take two days or two weeks. "We'll fly back tonight. Benny, man, you gotta get the dog outta my bed before I get back, he leaves hair fucking _everywhere_."

Eddie clears his throat awkwardly. Bill says on the other end, reluctant, "Guys, listen, I… I d-d-don't want to force you into anything if you're freaked out. I can do this by myself, especially if you're in the middle of a case…"

"You kiddin' me, Big Bill? You wouldn't get far at all without our rugged G-man badges _or_ good looks. We're essential to the whole operation." Richie doesn't turn around, just grabs Eddie's suitcase and begins to mechanically pack it. A faint little voice is prodding, asking what the fuck is _wrong_ with him; he ignores it. He doesn't really wanna go down that road. It feels like they are skirting around a larger issue—it isn't just Georgie, it's whatever happened that made them forget that whole summer: the government men in Bill's kitchen, whatever made Mrs. K move Eddie away, whatever took Georgie, and whatever took their memories. Skirting around it, but not seeing the other side, and they aren't sure if they do wanna see it. 

"No, Bill, we'll come back," Eddie says, uncertainly, but with a steady voice. "This… this is what we signed up for, right? What we've all been looking for all these years?"

"What the _rest_ of us have been looking for," says Richie, folding one of Eddie's boring ties. (He goes for more stylish, exciting ties, personally. Eddie calls them horrible. He has no taste, clearly.) "You were sent to be a little narc, remember?"

"Shut up, dipshit," Eddie says with no real heat. "We're on the same side, remember?"

"Riiight." Richie winks at Eddie over one shoulder. "That's what they want us to think, right, Secret Agent Spaghetti?"

"Don't _call_ me that, for the millionth fucking time…"

"Thank you, guys," Bill says, in that voice that meant _knock it off_ when they were ten and still kind of means it. He layers it under a lot of sincerity shit. "I really appreciate it. Want us to get you at the airport?"

"Sure thang. Better than an Uber," says Richie, folding a dress shirt and stuffing it in Eddie's suitcase. 

"We'll see you after you land, then," says Mike. "Have a safe flight."

"You and Benners have fun digging your way out of the assumed mountain of research awaiting you," Richie says sweetly, just as Eddie says, "We will." He cuts his eyes at Richie as he grabs his suitcase back and refold his shirts. _Picky bastard,_ Richie mouths at him, and Eddie sticks out his tongue. Instant regression is a thing.

"Thanks again," Bill says, his voice teeming with an emotion—Richie still isn't sure if it's excitement or fear. He's been obsessed with this for over twenty-seven years. "I really… I think this is a good thing, guys, I really do. We're so close to the truth. Finding out what happened to Georgie, and to us that summer… I think this really might be what gives us answers."

Eddie's hands hover awkwardly over his suitcase. Richie swallows hard, and threads his untied tie through his collar to shove it in his bag. "Right," Eddie says, his voice falsely bright. "Yeah. See you when we land, Bill."

\---

They're in the car and on the way to the airport within twenty minutes. Thank god they really only fly on the government's dime; the amount of frequent flyer miles Richie and Eddie have racked up would probably astound any sensible government employee. 

Richie lets Eddie drive. He sits in the passenger seat, his knee jiggling as he messes around with his phone, and when they're driving through the pitch-black Florida woods, he says, "You know, Eddie… those Mothmen are probably still out there," in his creepiest Voice. But it comes out all wrong and shaky, and he kind of wants to just bang his head against the window.

Eddie catches on. "Rich, are you okay?" he says gently. "You… seemed pretty shaken back there."

"You're one to talk, Eds," says Richie, staring out at the dark trees. He'd probably be asleep right now, or else lying awake in the bed next to Eddie's, staring at the TV or the dark ceiling and trying not to be overly aware of where he is. A couple of times, those Bureau fuckers booked them a hotel with rooms with only one bed available, which is about a million times worse. He tries not to think about that—although it's not like he'd rather think about Derry. 

"Yeah, okay, asshole. Clearly we're both shaken," says Eddie, a little snappish. "I guess I'm just… surprised. I mean, you've been into this for a while, right? Longer than I have. Enough to… follow Bill ⁸all this time."

"Yeah, well," says Richie, and he does bang his head against the window, just a little. The glass is cool against his forehead. "I wanted my memories back. I wanted whatever those assholes took away from me. I wanted to know what happened to all of us that nobody remembers… and yeah, I wanted to know what happened to Georgie." He swallows hard and tries not to think about the day that he found out Eddie had moved. He remembers that better than the rest of the summer—it's maybe the first clear thing after Georgie's disappearance. He'd found the Kaspbrak house empty, a _For Sale_ sign stuck in the lawn. He hadn't even said goodbye. Richie had been afraid that it'd been on purpose, until he got a frantic postcard from Eddie a few days later, full of apologies. It was the last correspondence he and Eddie had until they met again three years ago. It'd made him hate Mrs. K— _and_ the suited men—even more than he already did. 

He thumps his forehead against the window to stop that line of thinking. Too many fucking things to not think about. Maybe he should listen to Ben and go to therapy. "Anyways. I want the truth. You know, all that corny shit Bill says. _The truth is out there!_ " he says in his best Bill Voice, and is relieved to hear Eddie chuckling quietly. "But… I don't know if I want to _see_ it. Whatever took Georgie. Whatever hurt us." Ben's stomach bleeding under his t-shirt. Bleeding dots on Stan's face. The giant bruise on Richie's face. Eddie's arm bent at a strange angle… 

Eddie sighs, tapping absently on the steering wheel. "Yeah," he says quietly. "Yeah, me either."

Richie turns to look back at Eddie in the dim light of the car. This fucking job seems to take them to every creepy suburb or rural area in America, chasing weird little monsters along roads with absolutely _no_ streetlights. He's memorized how Eddie looks in the dark by now. "Hey, Eds," he says. 

"Yeah?" Eddie smiles sideways at him, just a little. He's definitely rattled, but he's still in there. That's a relief, that Bill's aliens don't have, like, mind control power. 

"Why'd you join this crazy train?" Richie asks. "You coulda pulled a Stan and backed the fuck off. Gone back to Quantico, taught some more snot nosed baby agents. No one woulda blamed you." They don't even blame _Stan_ —no one remembers much about looking for Georgie, but they at least remember that Stan hated all of this more than any of them. Didn't want to do any of this. Who _would_ want to? Stan deserves his life with his wife and his cute little house and his bird baths. The rest of them probably envy it most of the time. 

Eddie shrugs. "I guess I wanted the truth, too," he says. "The missing stuff has always unsettled me. And I mean, I knew you guys weren't full of shit, I was _there_ for most of it."

"Glad to hear it," Richie drawls, and Eddie makes a face at him. He leans back in his seat, looking out the window absently. 

"I'm serious, Rich. I believed you guys, and I wanted to do something about it. I… trusted you."

Trust is kind of a thing with them, Richie guesses, since Eds _was_ originally assigned to be a spy. They'd been nervous when they heard about it, that someone else was being assigned to the unit—Bill and Mike maybe more so than Richie. Bill had been nervous even after they heard it was Eddie and said some real fucking bullshit like, "We don't really know him anymore," and, "What if that's part of the trick, using someone we know?" Richie wouldn't really stand for it. He'd felt better as soon as he heard it was Eddie, because how could he not? Sure, it'd been over two decades since they'd seen each other, but it was _Eddie_. That kid who he used to share his animal crackers with in kindergarten. He had trusted Eddie before they even met a second time. 

"Yeah, yeah," he says. "I trusted you, too, you little maniac. And good thing. I still owe you for Wyoming."

"You're goddamn right you do," Eddie says automatically, and Richie bursts into wild laughter. Shit like this is enough to make him forget that he's still chasing his friend's little brother after twenty-seven years—is enough to make it all worth it, almost. 

"We'd better brace ourselves," Eddie adds after a few silent moments. "If I know Bill, I'm guessing we'll be heading to Derry in a couple days. If the assholes upstairs approve us, I guess." 

(They have a running bet as to how long it'll take for the X-Files to be shut down. Considering how often they piss off superiors, and the fact that no one takes the unit seriously anyway, it seems inevitable. Richie thinks they got at least a couple months; Eddie thinks they're living on borrowed time. There is really no telling.)

"Oh, you fucking bet," Richie says dryly, forehead against the window again. He can see the lights in the distance. "Pack your bags, Kaspbrak. Here we fucking go again."

\---

If asked, Eddie would say that the short version of the story is this: when he was a kid, he had some of the best friends in the world. And when he was thirteen, he had about the worst summer of his life, and his mom flipped her shit and moved them away. And he guesses he lived a pretty normal life after that, until he turned thirty-seven and walked down into Richie's rattly little cluttered basement office and got thrown back into the same shit as when he was thirteen—the upside being that he got to see some of those best friends in the world again. 

The long version is a little more complicated. Eddie remembers only bits and pieces of his thirteenth year. He remembers Georgie disappearing, when he was twelve; he remembers the men in Bill's kitchen who told his mom to forget about Georgie. He remembers deciding to look for Georgie, when Bill started insisting he wasn't dead. He thinks he remembers meeting Ben and Mike. There's a blur of the fun summer stuff that they always did as kids—and mixed in, horrible stuff. His broken arm. The strange men who drove him home after his broken arm—or after something else. (Eddie isn't sure. Maybe they took him home twice, because he remembers being alone in the back of that car with his shattered arm, and then he remembers his mom shouting, crying, packing up the whole house and leaving abruptly, but he doesn't think that was right after he broke his arm. He remembers seeing his friends, them signing his cast. And he remembers being alone in the car, but he also thinks he remembers being with others—the sound of other people screaming and grabbing at him before he left, like they were afraid to see him leave. He doesn't know. It all seems like a nightmare.) He remembers men in suits in _his_ kitchen, and hiding in his room, and packing in a hurry—arguing with his mom about how they _couldn't_ leave without saying goodbye. It's all such a blur. They left in a hurry, and he thinks he cried in the car, and he remembers going to his aunt's in upstate Maine, and walking to the post office to send postcards and explain. He sent one to everyone, to Bill and Stan and Ben and Mike, the whole club—and he sent one just to Richie. He felt like he needed to. 

A couple weeks later, he had gotten replies. Letters from the others, letters from Richie. But by then, he hadn't remembered. He had forgotten them almost completely for over twenty years, and didn't really remember it until he started working with Richie three years ago. He thinks someone might've done something to him, to make him forget—although he catches himself sometimes when he says that, wondering if he sounds insane, like the others, or if it's true. But he _didn't_ remember, not really, until Richie took him to his rattly apartment that he shares with Ben and Mike and re-introduced him to everyone—everyone but Stan, who Richie video-called down in Georgia. And then it started coming back. And Eddie stopped thinking that Richie was crazy. And he was all in. 

Here is how it happened: Eddie spent his teenage years in upstate New York, after they left his aunt's house, while his mom slowly drove him crazy, with her meds and her suffocating style of childrearing. So Eddie silently planned and applied to schools far away, and used college as his escape—specifically a college down in Maryland, not far from DC. That was where he somehow got into pathology—in college. He'd ended up in medical school with the intention of becoming a doctor, eventually (he had faint memories of someone telling him he should be a doctor—a girl with red hair, even though he definitely didn't know a girl with red hair), but had gotten attached to forensic pathology. He didn't know why, except for the reasoning that death had been a huge part of his life. His father died when he was five, he remembered that well, and the return of his faint childhood memories only served to illuminate that decision more. With everything that happened with Georgie, it was no wonder that he wanted to look for answers about why people died. 

Eddie got recruited by the Bureau, eventually. His acceptance there was probably a sign of rebellion, too. After thirty-some years of being called _sickly_ and _delicate,_ it was easy to just jump headfirst into anything that would prove the opposite. Besides, he didn't figure he'd be going into field work, and for a while, he hadn't. He'd been teaching at Quantico when he was reassigned to the X-Files. 

Richie's right when he calls Eddie a spy—or at least he would be right if Eddie had stuck to his assignment instructions. The description had been to _debunk_ the X-Files. Eddie wasn't sure what he was planning to do when he accepted the assignment, but he was sure under pretty much any other circumstances, he would've just done what he was told. (How's that for rebellion? Run away from your smothering mom, then do exactly what your superiors tell you.) But he didn't end up doing that. Obviously, he didn't end up doing that. 

He hadn't recognized the name Richard Tozier. He's a little embarrassed about that, but he really didn't remember at that point. Maybe the name had arisen a familiar feeling in Eddie, but he hadn't really _known_ . Not until after his elevator ride into the fucking _basement_ of the building, the walk down a dark hall claustrophobic with piled up boxes, and the tiny door at the end. The office looked like a fucking closet. And when Eddie knocked and went in, he saw that his impression of the office was pretty accurate. It was cramped and as crowded as the hall, random shit piled everywhere. There were a lot of issues of a magazine called _The Lone Gunmen_ , and a huge poster of a UFO that read, _I WANT TO BELIEVE._ Someone had stuck a sticky note on the UFO that read, _There they are!!!! The bastards we've been looking for!!!! ;)_

Richie himself looked like he'd literally been sitting there and waiting for him—Eddie's pretty sure he was. He was leaning back in his chair, feet propped up on his desk, and he sat up so fast when Eddie came in that he almost flipped the chair over. "Holy fuck!" he said, his voice brimming with excitement. "Holy fucking shit. Eddie fucking Kaspbrak."

"That… is me," Eddie had said uneasily, eyes shifting frantically around the office. The familiarity startled him; usually complete strangers didn't call him _Eddie_ right off the bat.

"Eddie Spaghetti," Richie said fondly, rounding his desk to meet him. "Holy _shit_ . I can't believe you joined the FBI! I can't believe _I_ joined the FBI. I was always the robber when we were kids, remember?"

"Um," Eddie said, wracking his brain now. Trying to figure out if Agent Richard Tozier was a nut, or if he actually knew him. "Do we know each other? I mean…" 

Richie froze in place, his cheeks turning pink, and shoved his outstretched hand in his pocket. "Eddie Kaspbrak?" he said, a little stiffer. "From Derry, Maine? Moved away when you were thirteen?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah. You… you knew me in Derry?" The whole thing started seeming more familiar then; he was having faint memories of a similar kid with crazy hair and crazy eyes and glasses that were always getting cracked or broken or shit like that. 

"Yeah," Richie said, and he extracted his hands to motion at himself pointedly. "You don't remember a little loudmouth called Trashmouth Tozier?"

It seemed to get a little clearer then. Richie. _Richie_ . He had the faint memory of walking home with this kid while he practiced impressions, of sneaking out and walking to the post office and scribbling out a postcard: _Dear Richie…_ "Holy shit," he said then, and he wasn't sure who was moving first, but the next thing he knew, he and Richie were hugging like they were kids again. "Shit, Richie, it's… been a while. I'm sorry, I don't know why…" 

"I do," Richie said, as if with great knowledge. He pulled away and shoved his glasses up on his face. "They fucked with our memory, too. Fuck, Bill and Mikey are gonna flip when they see you. I _told_ them we could trust you, and that the Bureau was fucking nuts for assigning _you._ You're not gonna spy on us, are you, Eds?"

"Don't call me that," Eddie said, almost automatically. He blinked confusedly at Richie, unsure of what to say. "Uh… Bill?" He thought he had faint memories of the names that Richie had mentioned—Bill, Mikey—but he wasn't sure where he knew the names. He was trying to place them. 

"Bill Denbrough? Mike Hanlon? Ben Hanscom?" Richie snatched one of the raggedy _Lone Gunmen_ magazines and tossed it to Eddie. "They write this. Mike thinks it's funny because of the JFK assassination. Your old friends have lost their _minds_ , Eds! Me included." He made a ridiculous face.

The names made it a little clearer. Eddie sat down on the edge of Richie's desk and rubbed furiously at his temples. "We used to hang out with them, too? In Derry?" he asked. 

"Right. You got it." Richie clapped him companionably on the shoulder. "I've missed you, Spaghetti. You wanna see the others?"

So they'd left the Bureau in the middle of the day to go meet their old friends from Derry—against Eddie's better judgement, but Richie insisted about ten times that it'd be fine. "No one really cares what I do," he said, and waggled his eyebrows mischievously. "I'm the FBI's most unwanted, didn't they tell you?" He took Eddie to an apartment he claimed as his, with at least three fancy locks on the front door, and an inside that looked like a more cluttered version of the X-Files office. More books, maybe. 

That was where he met—or re-met—Bill and Mike and Ben, and video called with Stan. In that cluttered apartment where Richie apparently lived with Ben and Mike that also served as a publishing house for their conspiracy theory magazine. “We’re a little paranoid,” Ben explained, apologetically, and the memory slid into place of the shy, quiet kid in Derry who Bowers almost killed with a knife when they were thirteen, and who bought them all sodas after Eddie patched him up. He started remembering all of them when he talked to them—Mike and Bill and Stan and Ben, the remnants of the Loser’s Club of 1989. Mike and Ben were products of that summer, new friends that had fit into the group so seamlessly that no one had questioned it—Eddie remembers more easily now—and Richie and Bill and Stan were the regular cast in Eddie’s social life from kindergarten to second grade. They were the ones he’d hidden in the pantry with when those men showed up at Bill’s house, the ones he'd frantically written to at that post office, and Eddie really couldn’t believe he had forgotten them.

The rest of them could. “They did something to our memory,” Bill said easily, sitting on the musty couch like he’d been there a thousand times. He didn’t live there—he was married, to a woman named Audra who made headlines in the DC area for the plays that she was in—but he was over often, apparently, and co-wrote _The Lone Gunmen_ alongside his varied conspiracy theory and horror novels. (“We keep trying to charge this bastard rent, but he’s all like, _You expect me to pay for two apartments? We can barely afford the one we have!_ ” said Richie. “We’d probably make a fortune off the magazine if we could put Bill’s name on it, but we like to stay anonymous,” said Mike.) They’d all turned into conspiracy theorists, past the paranoid types of people who just taped over the webcams on their computers (although they all did), and not far off from sitting around the living room in tinfoil hats. But after he listened to their stories, Eddie couldn’t blame them.

The recaps helped, actually, because Eddie’s memory was still fuzzy. Bill told him about Georgie’s death—” _Disappearance_ ,” he said in a firm voice, throwing Eddie back to seventh grade and Bill’s furious words: _H-h-he’s not dead! He’s j-j-j-just missing, he's just missing!_ —and about the government men who stepped in, and Eddie remembered that day in the pantry, exchanged an astonished look with Richie, who nodded grimly. And he remembered more: Bill recruited them all into investigating, trying to find out what happened to Georgie. Asking questions around town, poking around in the Barrens (where Bill thought his body would’ve washed up if he had disappeared), sneaking out of their houses at night to walk the streets and see if they could find Georgie. They got stopped by cops often, and eventually by weird men in dark suits, but Bill kept going, and they kept going with him, even though they were all terrified of whatever had taken Georgie, or of getting in worse trouble. (Eddie remembers trying to figure out a way to get out of it, or to offer support from the sidelines, remembers eyeing the phone at home nervously every time it rang, thinking it was the cops for his mother and he wouldn’t be allowed outside for the rest of the year. He thought about running off into the woods every time they got caught, but he could never bring himself to; he didn’t want to leave his friends alone to get in trouble without him. That wasn’t what they did.)

Things went fuzzy after that. “None of us can remember that whole summer,” Bill explained. “We’ve compared memories.” They can generally remember a few things: they were still looking for Georgie by that next summer, Betty Ripsom and some other kids had gone missing since Georgie, and Ben and Mike kind of banded with them that summer, at first just out of general camaraderie, but eventually to help them search for whatever took Georgie. (They all knew, instinctively, that there was an It involved. Even if they had no idea what it was.) The rest was mostly filled in by vague remembering. Ben and Eddie both remembered Bowers attacking him; Mike recalled a rock fight as his introduction to the group, which Richie confirmed—"That's how I got this sick scar," he said proudly, motioning to an imperceptible blemish on his forehead. Bill recalled some incident in his garage with a projector, and Richie and Mike recalled Stan getting attacked somewhere dark. Most of them could remember Eddie getting his arm broken, although they all had different recollections of it; Bill claimed he got it falling through the floor, while Richie insisted that something broke it _for_ him, and all Ben remembered was Richie trying to set it for him. All Eddie could really remember was the pain, the pain and the fear, and trying to push something away from him—which probably meant Richie was right, although he wouldn't tell him that. They all remembered the men in dark suits that kept popping up, with the constant stink of cigarette smoke. 

And none of them could really remember how it ended. "All I remember is the nightmares," Ben said. "And then I woke up at home, and I couldn't remember much of anything, but I ached all over, and when I went downstairs, my mom was furious. She grounded me immediately, and I couldn't get a thing out of her. All I knew is that someone else must've told her what happened because I hadn't told her a thing about that summer." Richie and Mike nodded grimly, like they'd had a similar experience. 

Eddie knew his experience was similar. It was fuzzy, but he knew he went home and his mom was hysterical, barely even talking to him. And one day she said, "We're moving," and that was that. No arguments. 

The others remembered that, too. Just coming to his house one day and finding him gone. They had their theories about that, too. "We think the men made your mom move," Mike said. "Scared her into it like they scared the Denbroughs into burying Georgie. I know they did the same thing to my grandparents, or at least they tried to, a couple years later. They wouldn't leave. They were mad at me, but they didn't like those men, either. They didn't trust them." 

Ben had a similar story. "They might've told my mom to move, too. I don't think she said yes. I remember they came to a house a couple times, and she sent me to my room, and all I heard was arguing on the other side of the door, and then they left. About a year later, she got fired really abruptly from her job. She was devastated; she was really determined to make the move to Derry permanent, but we had to move back to my uncle's in Nebraska. It was bad." Richie and Stan had apparently stayed, and Richie didn't remember any pressure from anyone, but Bill had ended up splitting time between Brunswick and Derry when his parents divorced midway through high school, which could've been the government _or_ genuine parental problems. Bill wasn't sure. He thought probably both. 

Since then, they'd all kind of had varying reactions. Stan was adamant that he wanted to _forget_ it, all of it, and had been since they were thirteen. "It's over now and it doesn't matter," he'd apparently said a lot. "I just want it to be over. I can't do that again." No one was sure whether he was more afraid of the suited men or the _thing_ that had taken Georgie—Eddie thought both were reasonable reactions—but he didn't want to be involved. He didn't even want to live in the area; he lived in Georgia with his wife, Patty. He'd apparently kept in touch with Richie and Bill and Mike in college, and still called or visited frequently—or they went down to visit him in Georgia—but he wanted nothing to do with any of it. He actually told Eddie over the phone, that first night they talked, "You don't have to do this, you know. Get involved with all of this again. It ended a long time ago, and… I think it's better if we leave it alone. We all almost _died_ last time; you almost died, Eddie." And it had moved something in Eddie, to the point where even as he agreed to help (or at the very least, _not_ spy on Richie), he kept hearing Stan's voice in the back of his mind. _You don't have to do this._ Like he was guilty or something. 

The rest of them had stayed a little obsessed, especially Bill, who had kept pursuing it all through high school. That wasn't a surprise. Mike wasn't really a surprise, either; like Ben, he'd been the bookish type, had an interest in researching Derry history, and seemed like the type to walk headfirst into a giant nest of secrets and nightmares like this one. But Richie surprised Eddie. It was obvious that he was all in from the beginning, clearly, but Eddie wouldn't have expected him to stay this invested for this long. He remembered him being devoted in the beginning, the way they all were to Bill, and he'd hung on longer than the rest of them. (Eddie has a faint memory of standing in the mouth of a sewer—a _sewer_ —with Stan, nervously watching as Richie and Bill marched in, unafraid.) But Richie had been scared, too, and Eddie thinks that devotion eventually began to crumble. He has faint memories of Richie being reluctant that summer, too, hanging back with the others, being scared. He's unsure what made his loyalty to Bill come back like this, what made Richie follow Bill for literally twenty-seven years. 

Anyways, their side of the story goes like this: upon graduation, Richie and Bill and Stan went to school in New York, and Mike stayed behind in Derry to help out when his grandfather got sick. That was when Stan met Patty and got married. That was also when Bill and Richie kind of got set on the path towards the FBI. Bill kept pursuing government jobs, his idea being that they could pursue Georgie from the inside, and finally settled on the Bureau. And Richie had gone with him. "Richie made it through the Academy and I didn't," Bill explained. "I guess he was more cut out for it."

Richie snorted, lying sprawled mostly upside down on the couch and rubbing the head of Ben's dog Baxter. "Sure. Sure I was. Whoever fucked with your file and not mine probably regrets it every day, Billy Boy."

"You were better at that shit than me, remember? Psychology degree?"

"Psychology degree?" Eddie asked with interest. 

Richie shrugged—or gave his best approximation of a shrug from upside down. "Accident," he said. "It was Theater, originally. But I kind of got into my Psychology classes I had to take for Gen Ed, and so I switched midway through. I figured that'd be more useful than _Theater_ in the search for the truth or what the fick ever. And my parents were pretty happy, too."

"Anyways," said Bill. 

Apparently after Bill had dropped out of the Academy, he'd heard from Mike, who had left Derry after his grandparents passed. He'd stayed semi obsessed, too, researching in his free time, and he decided to move down to Virginia and help with the continued digging into whatever the fuck happened in Derry. They'd gradually got acquainted with other, similarly-minded people over the years, which was how _The Lone Gunmen_ got started. Richie had kind of been shuffled around the FBI for a couple years before finally taking over the X-Files. Bill and Mike had gone deep into Derry research, gathering history, spending hours upon hours in the university library where Mike worked nights. Bill had eventually moved out to move in with his wife, and that was about when Ben had gotten in contact with them and moved in. 

"So how did you end up getting… re-involved in this?" Eddie asked politely. 

Richie wolf-grinned. "Yeah, Benny," he said jovially, "tell him about your imaginary girlfriend Beverly."

"Beep beep, Richie," Ben said tiredly, like he'd heard that joke a lot. "She wasn't imaginary," he explained to Eddie, "and she wasn't my girlfriend. She was a… friend." 

Apparently, Ben had been living a relatively normal life in Nebraska, designing buildings for some firm and only having a general recollection of whatever fucked with his memory as a kid when he'd run into a woman named Beverly, who was hiding from her ex-husband. They'd gotten acquainted over time, which led to Ben discussing the summer he was thirteen, and led to Beverly revealing that not all of her story was 100% truthful. She was hiding, but not from an ex-husband. She was hiding from the government. Ben didn't tell the full story, but apparently she'd had some similar experiences to them, and she had encouraged him to keep digging before dropping back off the grid. Which was what eventually motivated Ben to seek out the others, caught in the memories of those lost months when they were kids, whatever people had taken away, and haunted by Beverly's story. 

As to what had happened in Derry, they'd had some working theories at the time. Bill's main one was bizarre, but made sense considering the circumstances. He thought that aliens were in Derry, or visited Derry frequently. He thought that they took Georgie, and the other kids, for experimenting, and that the government covered it up. "The kids that were found dead," he said, "they were the result of failed experiments. And the suited men covered it up by framing Henry Bowers when he murdered his father."

Eddie didn't remember Henry Bowers's arrest, because he'd mostly been off the grid when it happened (courtesy of his mom), but he'd heard a few things since. It was one of those true crime cases the media loved to pick over. But all four of his friends were insistent that Bowers hadn't done it, and Eddie found himself unable to argue. Like he knew that Bowers couldn't have done it, but he didn't remember. 

Mike's theory was a little different. He thought the town was cursed. "If you look at the town's history, you'll see a pattern of tragedy," he's told Eddie more than once. He and Ben have a varying document detailing the timeline of Derry's grim shit: the Ironworks, the Black Spot, the Sleepy Silver Dollar—all the ghost stories Ben told them when they were kids. Mike pinned down the events as happening about every twenty-seven years. "It's a _pattern._ It's mechanical, and it always goes unnoticed. And the government covers it up." (That was one of the things they could all agree on, that the government was covering it up. The government had messed with their memories, the government was watching them. Even Eddie has picked up that mentality over time; he uses those shitty flip burner-style phones because Mike swears the government can’t track them.) 

Eddie isn’t sure which of the theories he subscribes to. Theorizing about it feels strange in the first place, when he knows he understood what had happened, at one point, and has since forgotten. He doesn’t want to stand around trying to figure out what took those kids, what took Georgie, and what left the huge gap in his memory; he wants to know for sure. He thinks that Richie might feel the same way; he thinks that’s why they are where they are, doing what they do. The X-Files are all about looking for answers—and then about not finding them, ironically enough. But Eddie and Richie are still searching, looking for the truth. Even if they are afraid of finding what’s on the other side. 

But all these years later, Eddie can genuinely say he doesn’t regret listening to the others that day. Even with all the near-death experiences on the fucking X-Files—he and Richie almost die about once every couple months, which is way too much; even with all the scrutiny from superiors, and the stress of living a paranoid life, and the fact that he only believes in about half the stuff they actually invesitgate; even with the stress of pleasing Bill that makes him feel fucking twelve years old again, and even though he’s fucking terrified to go back to Derry, he can still genuinely say he doesn’t regret it. He loves being around his friends again—genuinely some of the best friends he’s ever had—and he kind of loves working with Richie, despite all the fucking downfalls of the job. And even with the underlying fear that goes with all of this—that begins in a hotel room in Florida when Bill says _missing kids in Derry_ and is still choking Eddie when he gets onto the plane—Eddie can honestly say he thinks that it’s worth it, because he does want answers. He wants to know why suited men intimidated his mom into moving, and why they took his memories of his friends, and what happened that summer. He wants his life back. He wants what they took away from him, like all of them do, and that is motivation enough for all of them. 

\---

Eddie calls the Bureau at the airport in Florida and puts in a request to go to Derry. He knows their boss won't see it until the next meeting, but it feels worth it to be ahead of the curve, especially considering Bill's drive. 

"It's ridiculous that we have to _ask_ ," Richie groans while he's still on the phone. "Like we're five! Like we're fucking five years old, Eds. It's demeaning. I thought we left this shit behind in middle school."

Most of the time when Eddie got in trouble at school, it was with Richie. Sometimes it'd be with the others, and sometimes it'd involve all four of them, but mostly it was with Richie. He used to call them partners in crime. 

"They don't trust us," Eddie says, hanging up the phone. 

"Tell me something I don't know," says Richie, making a face at him. "I can't handle them being little bitches about this. Seriously. Bill's head will explode if they say we can't go. Even though we don't actually want to go. They'll just go without us and get killed by an alien monster."

For the millionth time, Eddie tries to picture aliens—little green men, he guesses—in Derry, and fails. "Whereas we're the picture of protection," he says dryly. 

"We have _guns_ . And _badges._ And _experience._ And unlike some fuckers who tormented our childhood selves, we will use them for good," Richie reminds him, rapping on his own head with his knuckles. Across the room, their boarding number is called, and Richie gets to his feet. "You ready to go home, Spaghetti?"

Eddie has a feeling they won't be home for long. He might not even _see_ his apartment. (No real loss there; it's a little cold and lonely.) "Someday," he says, standing, "I am going to come up with an extremely demeaning nickname for you, and you're going to hate it." 

Richie grins at him. "In your fucking dreams."

\---

They sleep on the plane because it's, like, the middle of the night. (Good old Bill and his excellent timing.) Eddie wakes up with his head on Richie's shoulder when the _fasten seatbelts_ light comes on, and is torn between yanking away in a panic and staying frozen in place, his neck turning red beneath his collar. Richie wakes up and sits up straight before he can decide, and they both delicately avoid eye contact until they exit the plane. 

Ben picks them both up at the airport—Eddie is guessing because Mike and Bill are buried way too far in research to step away. He's got Baxter in the front seat, nose pressed interestedly to the windshield, huge tail wagging. Richie claims this seat immediately, throwing the door open and saying, "Hey there, you bed-stealing fucker. Seat-stealing fucker, too. You have no morals, do you? Oh, no you don't!"

"Hey, Rich," Ben says in a dry voice. "Baxter missed you."

"This furry asshole?" Richie asks in an incredulous voice. 

"If you're trying to pretend you hate the dog, you're doing a shitty job," Eddie says, sliding into the back, and dodging Baxter as he jumps agreeably into the back. He's a huge shepherd mix that takes up most of the seat and sheds like a maniac, but it's pretty hard to hate him. 

"How dare you, sir," Richie says in his best Haughty Voice. 

Ben yawns, pulling away from short term parking. "So how was Florida?"

"Muddy," Eddie says with a grimace. 

"Delightful, Benners my man. We saw a Mothman, and Eds fell in the mud like three times." Richie grins gleefully when Eddie flips him off, but the grin fades fast as he turns towards Ben. "How is it?" he asks, quieter this time. "What's… what's happening?"

Ben sighs, swallowing hard. He's nervous, too; Eddie can see it from in the back. "They think it's back," he says. "Whatever… _It_ is. It looks like it's happening again." 

Richie sobers immediately, hunching over in his seat, one hand over his eyes. Eddie pulls at a loose thread on his coat, eyes on the windshield. Thinking of Missing posters, plastered to telephone poles by the rain; thinking of his mother worriedly asking where he was going every afternoon, hovering over him; thinking of Betty Ripsom's mom outside the school, and walking home with Richie, and the tiny empty coffin at Georgie's funeral. He's worked missing kid cases before—they pop up in the X-Files every now and then, he and Richie both hate them—but never like this. This isn't just a missing kid, someone they may or may not can bring home (it's always a relief when they can bring someone home); it's confirmation that things are happening again. He's thirteen again and afraid of the dark. "Same M.O. as… as before?" he asks quietly, pulling at his tie like it is too tight around his neck. 

"Not exactly the same. It's… kids disappearing when people aren't watching them. Some without a trace. Some with… traces." Ben winces, audibly. "No sign of lights in the skies, I guess, but the newspapers wouldn't mention shit like that, you guys know they wouldn't. But the pattern is the same. It's not random, like the other murders or disappearances in Derry, it's… methodical, you know? And it fits the timeline." His fingers tap frantically on the steering wheel. Eddie thinks of standing in his room, newspapers and historical documents pasted to the walls. "The worst stuff in Derry, it's every twenty-seven years. It's been twenty-seven years since 1989."

"Fuck," Richie murmurs behind one hand, and shoves his glasses up to rub his eyes. "Am I going crazy, Haystack? I don't fucking get it. This is the closest we've been in years to… to finding this shit, to figuring out what happened to Georgie and to us… If it's happening again, then we can figure it out this time, and I… I should be happy, shouldn't I? We've been looking for this shit for so long, but I… I don't want to do this. I don't want to go back." 

Eddie nods a little bit, unconsciously, because he agrees. Richie's voice croaks a little as he says, "I mean… what the fuck is wrong with me?"

In the driver's seat, Ben is tense, his shoulders clenched. "I… I think I feel the same way," he says quietly. "All this time, we've been looking, but I… I'm scared. I don't want to go back, either."

The thread comes loose in Eddie's hand, drawing tighter and then releasing. His fingertip is bloodless from where he's wrapped the thread around it three or four times. He swallows hard and unwinds it, clears his throat. "You don't have to go back, you know," he says. "I mean… this is Richie's and my jobs. We kind of have to go back. You… you don't."

Richie pulls his hand down and shoves his glasses back in place, lens smeared with dust or dirt or maybe tears. Eddie isn't sure—they're almost always smeared with something. "Yeah," he says, his tone teasing again. " _You_ don't have to go back. You're off the hook, you foolish little civilian."

Ben snorts a little from the front seat. "Of course we're coming back," he says. "We _have_ to come back, we… this is what we've been looking for, right?" And Eddie doesn't really know what to say to that. 

He and Richie and Ben might be scared, but Bill and Mike don't seem very rattled at all. They seem jittery with nervous excitement, buried in mountains of research strewn all over the living room. The apartment is a mess, which is pretty much a good indicator of their state of mind. Richie dumps his bag on the floor and shoves aside a pile of magazines to collapse on the couch. Baxter climbs up beside him and sprawls out in Richie's lap. "Home sweet home," he says wearily, as Eddie sits beside him. 

"How was Florida?" Mike asks, closing his book. Bill is gathering papers frantically. 

Eddie shoves his hand over Richie's mouth and says, "Fine," simply. Richie makes a deeply offended sound of protest. "No one needs to hear the fucking mud story again," he tells Richie. 

Richie sighs dramatically when Eddie removes his hand. " _Fine._ Special Agent Spaghetti is censoring me. It's the _exact opposite_ of everything we're working towards, whatever." 

They're skating around the subject, obviously, but as soon as Bill gathers everything and sits across from him, they know it's time. He says, "Here it is," and spreads out the articles on the coffee table. The Derry newspaper goes by a different name now. Eddie recognizes one of the names of the reporters; they went to middle school with her. Five kids. Five kids gone this year. 

Richie picks up one of the articles and reads it, his hand so tight around the paper that it's crumpling again. Eddie can't really bring himself to reach for any of the articles. "We found this with it," Mike adds, and puts a note down with it. In scrawled handwriting, it reads, _It's happening again. It's back._

"Is that Blow Job Ron's handwriting?" Richie asks. 

" _Deep Throat_ ," Ben corrects grimly, taking a long drink from a mug of tea as he sits down near them. 

"Right, right, sure."

"We don't know," says Mike. "Deep Throat doesn't usually leave notes."

"Spooky." Richie flutters his fingers dramatically. 

"Okay." Eddie leans forward, examining the articles. The picture at the top of one is a yard filled with sheets on a clothesline, a tricycle abandoned in the yard. "And you… you really think this is the same as what happened when we were kids? Same as Georgie?"

"Two of the kids have been found dead, like Betty and Ed and Patrick were eventually found dead. But these three that haven't been found yet…" Bill taps the article emphatically, motioning wildly with one hand. "They're already considered dead. One set of parents have already had funerals, just like my parents did with Georgie."

"I got into the mainframe of the Derry Police Department… They've already closed the cases. They're not looking anymore," says Mike. "Remember how quick the police gave up when we were kids? Everyone thought Betty's mom was nuts for holding on so long, when she'd only been gone for a couple weeks."

"Plus it fits the timeline, remember?" Ben says, scratching Baxter on the head and avoiding their eyes. "Twenty-seven years."

" _How_ has it been that fucking long," Richie says under his breath. "I don't… You want to go back, right? You want us to go back?"

Mike looks down at his hands, folded on the table. Ben takes a long drink of his tea. Bill says, "Yeah, I think… I think we should go back. I think that might be the best way for us to figure this out."

"And maybe we could save people, if we went back," Mike adds. "Maybe… stop this from happening again."

Eddie nods. They both nod. That's their job, that's what they do—that's what they've been trying to do all this time. He can remember the first time they got a kid home safe—a kid who was supposedly taken by a monster in the woods; they'd found her and taken her home, and her big brother had been beyond relieved, hugging her and thanking them and crying, and Eddie had thought of Georgie. Thought of Bill hiding in the pantry. They were doing for that family what they never could do for Bill. 

"Okay," says Eddie, because what else can he say. "We—Richie and I can go. I put in a request, they should get it in the morning. You guys… maybe you should stay back, until we have a handle on things."

"No," Bill says immediately. 

"Eds—" Richie jabs a finger in Eddie's direction. "Eds has a point, man. We've—done this before, a lot. This is some run of the mill fucking stuff. You guys are civilians, it could be dangerous…"

"Absolutely not," says Bill. 

Mike nods along with him. "This is—this is about all of us. This is what we've been looking for answers about, all these years; they took a lot away from all of us."

"And this was my fight, originally," Bill adds. "I just dragged you guys along for the ride."

They look at Ben, who shrugs. "I want to know, too," he says. "And I… don't think you're talking them out of it."

"Well, that's pretty obvious," says Richie. "You guys are so fucking stubborn. Has Eddie been giving you lessons?"

Eddie flips him off, wordlessly. "At least let us go down first and check things out," he says. "We can fly up on the Bureau's dime, do some digging… we have the advantage of a badge, anyway. And you guys could probably save some money by driving."

Mike grins wryly. "We kind of figured we would drive," he says. "Not that you know, being a night librarian and a novelist/conspiracy theorist journalist isn't lucrative, you know."

"Don't forget the freelance architecture job," Ben offers. Baxter whimpers sympathetically. 

"What are you going to tell Audra?" Eddie asks Bill. He likes Audra a lot, and she handles their level of weirdness pretty easily—he guesses knowing Bill and Richie since college will do that to a person—but he doesn't know how much Bill has explained about their whole schtick. 

Bill shrugs. "The truth, I guess? I don't want her going up there. I… it's too dangerous. She's busy with rehearsals right now, anyway, so I guess it's for the best."

Eddie nods. Beside him, Richie says suddenly, "What about Stan?"

They turn to look at him, and he shrugs. "You still wanna keep him in the dark?"

"We're still trying to figure it out," Mike says gently. "You know he won't want to come."

"It'd be great if he _could_ come," Bill adds. "If everyone was together again… I just don't think he'll want anything to do with it. He never does."

"We need to tell him at some point," Eddie says. He's never wanted to be involved, and Eddie doesn't blame him, but he was there with them. He went through whatever they went through—he still has rows of scars on his face that he refuses to talk about—and he lost his memory, too. "I'd want to know, if I were him," he adds. "I think he'd want to know, too."

Ben mutters his agreement from his chair. Bill nods. "We'll fill him in," he says. "Let him know what's going on."

Eddie nods back. Richie clears his throat loudly and sits up straighter, startling Baxter into crawling off him and onto Ben. "Right!" he says, too enthusiastically. (Eddie spends seventy or eighty percent of his week with Richie Tozier, and spent eight years constantly at his side as kids; he _knows_ when Richie is bullshitting everybody.) "We're going home! It's like a high school reunion. Well. Middle school, I guess. Sorry, Eds. Sorry, Haystack." He slings an arm around Eddie's shoulder. "So, when are we leaving?" he asks. "Big Bill? Mikey?"

Mike shrugs, almost embarrassedly, and retrieves his reading glasses from the coffee table. Bill says apologetically, "We were thinking… tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Eddie says faintly, trying not to sound surprised. He should have expected this, but still—he is going home _tomorrow._ He doesn't think he is ready. 

"Tomorrow!" Richie grimace-smiles and squeezes Eddie close. "Re-pack your bags, Eds-o. We're going on a case."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The town sign is getting bigger and bigger as they get closer. The letters seem almost ominous, like they're taunting them. "Here we go again, Eds," Richie says quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning up front for discussion of kids going missing   
> /grieving parents/searching for missing kids and references to children dying (within a canonical context)

Richie doesn't dream about Derry often—miraculously, miraculously doesn't dream about it often—but he does the night before going back. He dreams about the Barrens, about sitting in the swampy area near where Ben would build them a clubhouse with Bill and Stan and Ben and Mike and Eddie. It's unflinchingly realistic—maybe Richie's losing his mind, but he can almost  _ feel  _ the warmth of the summer sun, the grass itchy underneath him. He feels like he has a headache, like somebody brained him in the head. 

He realizes then that he's dreaming about the day they met Mike. The memory is foggy, but he does remember it, he and Mike both. They found Bowers attacking Mike down at the creek and had thrown rocks to scare him off. It'd been intense, clearly the type of fucking thing that gives way to a twenty-seven year long friendship, and it was hard for any of them to deny it'd happened, even if not all of them remembered it. Anyways: Richie figures out it's that day, in the dream, because Mike's looking a little bruised and battered, little spots of blood on his shirt, and he seems to be withdrawn and shy. At least that's how it seems; dreams are surreal and weird. 

The first clear thing in the dream is kid Mike speaking, sounding confused. "So it was… blood?"

"Yeah, and it was fucking  _ everywhere _ ," dream-kid Eddie says, motioning emphatically and talking in that rushed way he has when he's excited or angry or whatever. "Like on the ceilings and stuff! It was disgusting, it was so bad. It took like an hour to clean up." Beside him, Stan nods grimly like he agrees. 

Dream-Richie snorts. "You guys are so full of shit," he says. "They're full of shit, Homeschool."

"W-we're not making it up," says Bill, his arms around his knees. 

" _ She's  _ not making it up," says kid Ben, deeply offended, like Richie's insulting him. "She said it was real, so it's real, and anyways, we all saw it!"

"But  _ I _ didn't see it," Richie says, like that means anything. "Hey, Big Bill, you're the one who thinks those suited men are messing with shit! Maybe you got mind controlled. Like your parents."

Mike's staring at them either like he thinks they're nuts or like he agrees with them wholeheartedly, but Bill is shaking his head, something bordering on anger across his face. "It w-w-wasn't that," he says sternly. 

"How would you  _ know  _ it's that?" Richie argues. "If you'd been mind controlled…"

"We weren't mind controlled, Richie." Stan is glaring at him too, now. Dream-kid-Richie must know this is serious, cause he backs off then, flopping back on the grass and grumbling something else about mind control. Eddie glances at him before turning back to Mike and saying something like, "We've all been seeing weird shit. Have you ever seen a…"

"She wasn't making it up," Ben says, wounded. 

"You don't know, Haystack," Richie says. "She wouldn't know she was making it up if she was mind controlled…"

"It was real," Ben says simply. He exchanges a weird look with Bill across the circle and just says again, "It was real."

Richie wakes up then, lying on his face in his bedroom, his head still pounding like he's hungover (which he isn't). Baxter must've broken out of Ben's bedroom because he's figured out how to slither under the covers with Richie and is taking up half the bed. Richie shoves the dog over a little as he rolls onto his back and rubs absent at his forehead, muttering, "What the fuck was  _ that _ ." 

It must be one of those weird dreams in the way that dreams are weird because he doesn't know of any  _ she  _ from when they were kids. Especially a she who told stories about a room covered in blood which kid him was a total dick about. Some of them had girlfriends later in high school, and of course there's Audra and Patty, but this is when they were thirteen. And Audra and Patty have never been to Derry, as far as Richie knows. 

Richie gets up, because the flight he and Eds chose is in like three and a half hours, and he sees no point in trying to go back to sleep. He lets Baxter out (after a fight with the three million locks on the door), and then he goes and sits on the end of the couch Eddie is on. Eddie stayed over last night because there didn't seem to be much point in going home; he does that a lot, so often that they've dubbed one of the couches his couch. It's the one they attack with the lint roller the most often. 

Eddie's already awake, reading something on his phone, and he moves his feet automatically so Richie can sit down. "I'm trying to find the names of the missing kids," he says absently. "We're going to have to talk to the parents. See if… they've been interfered with, I guess. Like the Denbroughs."

Richie winces a little at the thought. He is definitely not looking forward to that. "Yeah, makes sense," he says. "We should probably focus on figuring out whether or not it's the same situation as 1989. We could be chasing false leads."

Eddie chews at his lower lip, putting his phone down. "I don't think it's that."

Richie doesn't think it is, either, not really. He shrugs and says, "Better to be safe than sorry, right?" He pokes the top of Eddie's foot through the throw overtop of him; Eddie makes a face and moves it away. "Hear anything from the hell bosses yet?"

"Considering it's six in the fucking morning," says Eddie, "no." He picks the phone back up and starts poking at it again. "I don't think they're going to say yes."

"You're being  _ paranoid _ , Eds. They've dealt with our shit for three years and mine for longer; we're gonna be  _ fine _ ." Richie pokes the top of his foot again and smirks. "Besides, we go either way, right?"

"We've already got the fucking tickets, Rich."

"Riiight, right." Richie tips his head back against the top of the couch, staring up at the ceiling. There's more jokes he could make, but his mind gets stuck on the dream he just woke up from. Little kid Eddie talking about blood everywhere, on some  _ ceiling _ , something that Richie does  _ not  _ remember, and that has never come up in any of the discussions about memories that they've had. And the girl that Ben kept mentioning, who Richie still cannot place. "Hey, Eds," he says, thoughtfully, "do you remember, uh… cleaning blood off some ceiling somewhere? When we were kids?"

Eddie looks up abruptly. "What? No, I don't remember doing anything like that. When did we do that?"

"I don't know," Richie says. "What about… did we ever hang out with a girl? A girl who maybe talked about blood on the ceiling?"

"I… no." Eddie's brow furrows, deep in thought. "No, I don't remember any blood or a girl… I mean, we used to follow your sister around when we were little. And remember Stan's cousin who spent the summer in Derry when we were ten?"

"This was later," Richie says. "When Ben and Mike were around."

"Huh. No, I don't remember that at all. That's so fucking weird."

"That sounds like some shit that would've happened that summer, though, right? Fuckin' blood in the streets, blood on the ceilings…" Richie waves a hand wildly. "I dreamed this shit last night, I didn't remember any of it before. It was after the rock fight when we met Mike, and we were all sitting around talking. Whatever had happened with the blood or whatever, all of you were there, but Mike and I weren't, and I didn't believe you about it. I thought you guys were mind controlled."

"Wouldn't surprise me," Eddie says with a sharp laugh. "You not believing us, not the mind control thing. That sounded like total bullshit."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Spaghetti." Richie holds up a warning finger. " _ First  _ of all, you are a huge conspiracy theorist just like us. Don't play coy. And also, you are clearly the established skeptic in this relationship. No role breaking, Dr. K."

"Whatever, whatever. And we were talking about a girl?"

Richie nods. "Nobody mentioned a name, but Bill and Ben seemed very defensive."

"Are you sure it wasn't Stan's cousin?" Eddie asks. 

"I'm pretty fucking sure we'd remember Stan's cousin being around the summer we were thirteen," says Richie. "Mind scramble or not, we wouldn't forget a  _ person _ ."

Eddie rolls his eyes and pokes Richie in the thigh. "Shouldn't we get going, asshat? Our flight is in a couple hours."

"In like three hours, but whatever. I know the deal. I know what Special Agent Spaghetti has to do to feel secure. I'll go get my shit." Richie stands, sighing theatrically. "I'll bet all the other agents don't have to deal with this shit, Eds."

"This is literally just common fucking sense, Rich, you get to the airport a little early so you don't miss your fucking flight!"

"No bickering in the living room at six a.m.!" Mike shouts from his room. "Or at least make some coffee first."

"You got it, Mikey!" Richie winks in the direction of his closed door. 

Eddie is still grumbling a little under his breath, folding the throw. "Have you asked the others about this?" he asks. "Maybe they remember."

"Not yet. I'll text them later, I guess." Richie rubs the back of his neck with one hand. "I'll go pack, I guess. Which tie do you think says,  _ Returning to your traumatizing childhood home to rediscover lost memories,  _ Eds?"

"None of them," Eddie says, like he's trying to kid around, but it comes out all wrong, kind of warped. His voice shaking. Like he's scared. 

"I am  _ hurt _ ," Richie says, but it comes out shaky, too. He bites back further things, thinking absently, _ Yeah, Eds, I'm scared, too,  _ and slips into his room to pack. 

\---

The flight to Bangor is brief. Richie dozes on the flight, his head lolling distractedly on Eddie's shoulder (which Eddie dutifully ignores), but Eddie himself is too wired to sleep. He keeps returning to the fact that this isn't a normal case, that they're going  _ home.  _ To the town he hasn't been to in  _ thirteen years, _ to try and save children like Georgie, to try and recover memories lost years ago. A tiny part of him wonders if the memories will all come flying back when they land in Maine, but that seems far from realistic. (Even if his job is never fucking realistic.) He has no idea when, or even if, they'll ever remember. Considering that the government is the reason they don't remember horrifies Eddie frequently, especially when he lingers over how it could've happened—did they perform  _ surgery, _ did they do something chemically? He pictures how horrified his mother must have been, and then he trips over the fact that they told her things and manipulated her and she never once questioned any of it. 

It fucks with his head a little. He spends the flight trying to distract himself by reading the information he found on the missing kids (Mike and Ben stayed up late hacking into the Derry Police Department and printing stuff out), but that just makes it worse. He reads about crime scenes and thinks about the kids at school whispering,  _ Blood in the streets, I think someone killed him _ ; he reads about grieving parents and thinks about Mrs. Denbrough sobbing at the funeral, about Mr. Denbrough shouting when he found them with a map and a maze of guinea pig tunnels in the garage, the stony silences in a normally boisterous house. He thinks about Bill and Georgie, the way he does with every missing kid case, and he thinks about all the kids they've found, or that they weren't able to save, and he has to put away the files after a while. 

Richie snores in his sleep, nearly tumbling over into Eddie's lap. Eddie looks out the window at the tiny scenery below and thinks, instead, about riding bikes through green woods, splashing through the quarry, huddling in fear in the woods while hiding from the suited men. Thinks about driving out of Derry with his mom, biting back furious tears and furious words, pressing his face to the window when they passed Richie's house without really knowing why. He thinks about the postcard without meaning to, and is filled with the similar desperate fear he'd had as a kid, being dragged away from his friends; he has to resist the urge to grab Richie's hand, like it's happening right then. He rests his head against the plane window and watches the scenery below as they start to descend. 

Richie wakes only when Eddie straps his seatbelt automatically, halfheartedly swatting his hands away. "Shouldn't have fucking napped, now I'm gonna be all groggy," he mutters. 

When they land, Eddie's phone buzzes with a message from their boss, informing him that their request has been denied.  _ Whatever is happening in Derry is not the concern of the X-Files. And besides that, considering your histories, I think that you and Agent Tozier are entirely too close to this.  _ Eddie waves his phone under Richie's nose and Richie shrugs sleepily. "We figured this'd be the case."

"They're gonna figure out that we went eventually, you know," says Eddie. 

"Who fuckin' cares? For that fact, who will fuckin' notice? FBI's  _ most unwanted _ , remember?" Richie gestures to them. "Besides, who the hell is gonna notice? The janitor when he doesn't find us downstairs at three a.m. throwing pencils at the ceiling?"

"That happened  _ once _ ," Eddie protests. They usually do their three a.m. work at one of their apartments, either in the relative peacefulness of Eddie's living room, or in the general chaos of Richie's, with helpful input from the other Losers. 

Richie smirks as they slide out into the aisle. " _ Three _ times, Spaghetti my friend. Three times."

\---

Maine summers are hot. Hot and humid, and chilly at nights, and Eddie can only assume that the whole fucking global warming thing can't help that. They're both peeling off their jackets by the time they have their rental car. "Why the fuck do we wear this stuff again?" Richie groans, loosening his tie in the passenger seat. "I thought we were trying  _ not  _ to be fucking men in black." They keep the air up high all the way to Derry. 

Traversing the familiar roads is strange, strange enough to make Eddie shiver even in the heat. There's a gas station, closed now, where Richie's mom would drive them to get Icees sometimes, there's the pool in Hampden where Stan and Bill took swimming lessons together, there's the park where they went on school picnics every year. Richie keeps his face turned to the glass the whole drive in, pointing out familiar things. "I can't even remember the last time I flew in," he says quietly. "My parents moved out years ago. I remember when… Stan and Bill and I drove out, headed down to New York, I thought that was the end of it all. I thought we were done here."

"We drove this way when we left," Eddie offers. "We stopped in Bangor for gas. I… I think I thought about running away, when we were stopped. Just getting out of the car and running. But I chickened out."

Richie's face does something funny, and Eddie swallows hard and changes the subject. "Didn't we go on field trips out here? They'd take us to that museum in Bangor…"

"...  _ every fucking year  _ since kindergarten!" Richie finishes, looking satisfied. "Holy shit, those field trips got old. Those fucking bus rides. Why couldn't they be more original?"

"No fucking clue," Eddie says, laughing a little. 

In the distance, he sees the  _ Welcome to Derry  _ sign, a tiny dot on the road. It's a couple miles from the main part of town, and when they were eleven, Bill talked them into riding out here, the longest bike ride they'd ever taken. They'd done it in the middle of the night while sleeping over at Stan's, and Eddie had never felt more daring in his life, riding through the dark when he wasn't supposed to with his heart pounding like crazy from fear or exhilaration. They'd stepped back and forth over the town line a million times, like it was the most courageous thing they could do. Bill said something about biking to Bangor sometime. Stan and Richie tried to jump up and touch the town sign, smaller than their pre-growth spurt selves. They'd all said something about not being able to wait to get out of here, and Eddie had really really meant it then. But two years later when he had actually left, he hadn't wanted to go. 

Richie sighs a little, sitting up straighter in his seat. The town sign is getting bigger and bigger as they get closer. The letters seem almost ominous, like they're taunting them. "Here we go again, Eds," Richie says quietly. 

Eddie takes a deep breath. In, out. He never really thought he would come back here. His hands tighten around the steering wheel; he stiffens, preparing—maybe naively—to remember. Like it's all gonna come back when they roll over the line. 

They pass the sign. Nothing happens. No new burst of memory. His mind stays blank, unable to recall anything new about that summer. He can picture the four of them clustered around that sign at age eleven, but nothing else. 

Richie laughs a little, wildly. "Well, that was pretty fucking anticlimactic, dontcha think?" 

Eddie shrugs, his eyes on the horizon. There's nothing but trees all around them. 

The radio springs to life suddenly, with neither of their hands anywhere near the dial. It's all static, crackling loudly out of the speakers as if the volume was all the way up. 

Eddie swears, tensing all over. Richie's hand flies out and hits the dial, silencing it quickly. "Shit," he says through clenched teeth, laughing again, uneasily. "That was creepy, huh?"

"Yeah," Eddie says, his fingers tight around the steering wheel. He feels like his throat is tightening, like he's on the verge of an asthma attack that isn't really an asthma attack. "Yeah, it was."

\---

They opt for going to the Derry Police Station first, which is probably a terrible idea. Local cops usually fucking hate them. "Maybe they'll remember us and that'll take the edge off," Richie suggests innocently outside, rubbing his badge on his jacket like he's trying to polish it. "Remember the Irish cop?" He puts on a bad Irish Voice. "Top o' the morning to ya, young Kaspbrak."

"I don't think that would  _ help,  _ Rich, we were constantly getting in trouble  _ before  _ the suited men were on our asses about everything."

"They probably have  _ different cops,  _ Eds, it's been twenty-seven years." Richie runs the top of Eddie's head like they're kids again. "The power of nostalgia will lull these new people who don't remember our falsified childhood delinquency into a state of trust."

"And the words  _ Federal Bureau of Investigation  _ will instantly scare them off," says Eddie grimly. 

"Fuck 'em, then. We can do it without them. We've done it plenty before." Richie shrugs. "This isn't about them, anyway. Ben and Mike got us the info we need."

"People can't  _ know  _ that, though, dumbass, we have to go through the normal channels or we'll catch shit for it." Eddie yanks off his seatbelt and sighs, staring at the building. They never took them in when the cops were always chasing them around as kids, but Eddie lived in fear of it. He remembers when he and Stan were seven and Bowers stranded them in the woods during a school picnic, and they had to wait here for their mothers after the cops found them. Even then, he'd been terrified, when he maybe should've been grateful. "I hate this part," he mutters.

Richie sighs, too, and unbuckles his seatbelt. "Just wait a while, man. We haven't even talked to any of the parents yet."

Inside the station, the cops don't seem very active, at least not how Eddie would expect on a missing kid case. ( _ Fucking absentee adult curse strikes again,  _ he thinks bitterly.) But they all seem to stiffen when Richie and Eddie walk in. A couple even stand and approach them, their eyes practically zooming in on the badge Richie has in hand. One of them speaks before Eddie can go into his usual introduction spiel, snapping, "What are you doing here? They said they wouldn't send any more of you!"

Eddie turns to look at Richie and sees the same thought flickering over his face:  _ Suited men.  _ The men in black. They've never been able to figure out what section of the government they came from, but they've always known they  _ were  _ government. The cop is still muttering, something about "... done everything you said…" and Richie smirks and says, "Any more of  _ who _ ?"

The cop shuts up, looking distressedly at his companion. Eddie clears his throat and says, "I'm Agent Kaspbrak and this is Agent Tozier. We're with the X-Files unit of the FBI." He hopes they don't ask what the X-Files is, because that's never a fun conversation. No one likes to say,  _ Oh yeah, I've got a potential supernatural entity running around!  _ Not to mention the number of times the explanations have been entirely mundane. "We're here to investigate the recent disappearances…" he adds. 

"What's there to investigate?" the other cop, the one who hasn't spoken yet, says. "The kids are dead."

"There have been five disappearances," says Richie, his tone a little harder. "Three haven't been found."

"We're actually locals," Eddie offers in an attempt to get off on the right foot. "We grew up here…"

"I don't know why the hell you're here," says the first cop. " _ Your people _ told us to drop the investigations."

The words get stuck in Eddie's mouth. It's 1988 all over again. He's in Bill's pantry with the government on the other side of the door. Richie says, " _ Our people  _ haven't done anything," in the hard tone Eddie only really hears when missing kids or governmental corruption is involved. "We're here because we believe that something is happening to those kids that falls under the realm of unexplained phenomena. We want to help figure out what's been doing this. And we want to try and bring these kids home, or at least offer some peace to their parents."

" _ Unexplained phenomena _ ?" says the first cop incredulously. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The second cop is blunter. "The kids are dead," he says. "They're not coming home. Their deaths have been declared accidental. Our job is done. And we don't need more government men poking around and trying to tell us we did our job wrong."

"Because the Derry PD is the picture of perfection," Richie mutters under his breath as the second cop turns away. 

The first cop glares at them, and looks like he wants to say something more. But Eddie speaks first. "This happened in 1989," he says, his voice surprisingly hard. "Bunch of kids went missing. Cops didn't do anything about it. And when the bodies turned up, the deaths were pinned on Henry Bowers."

The second cop turns around, the expression on his face beyond furious. "What the fuck do you know about any of that?" he says sharply. 

Eddie swallows hard. "I told you," he says. "We grew up here. We remember." That's sort of a lie, but what's the point in explaining? They both know the details (as told to the public) inside and out anyway. Why tell the cops they only remember half of it?

The cop's eyes narrow. "Welcome home," he says in a steely voice. "And whatever the hell you think you know, I'll tell you this: Henry Bowers has been in prison for twenty-seven years. He is not responsible for this."

"We don't think he did anything besides murdering his father, the fucking asshole," says Richie. "We want to find what took those kids then and is taking these kids now, because it wasn't Henry Bowers. We want to find the truth."

"There  _ is  _ no truth," snaps the cop. He looks around at the station, at the other cops shooting them dirty looks. "Everyone here will tell you the same story. There's nothing to investigate. And you shouldn't expect any help from us." He turns and stalks away. 

The first cop shoots them another dirty look and starts to turn away. "Who was here before?" Richie asks before he can go. "The people told you to drop the investigation. And that they wouldn't send any more people. Who were they?"

"You should know," the cop says bitterly. "You're with them, aren't you?"

Richie scoffs a little. Eddie tries one more pathetic attempt at making peace. "What do you think did it?" he tries. "What's taking those kids? What are they trying to cover up?"

The other cops are still glaring at them. Maybe some are staring. The first cop just shrugs. "Like he said," he says. "Like  _ your _ people said. They're accidental deaths. There's nothing that can be done."

"Jerry Bellwood has only been missing a week," Richie protests, but quietly. The cops aren't listening. 

They sigh—a mutual sort of sigh—and turn away, heading for the door. "That went better than it did in Nebraska," Richie mutters under his breath. 

"Nebraska set a personal record. And that wasn't exactly fucking great, Rich," Eddie grits out between clenched teeth as they push out of the police station. He's thinking about being seven again and huddling with Stan on the chairs against the wall; they disappeared in the middle of the day, but it took until nightfall for the cops to find them, took most of the afternoon before the teachers even noticed they were missing. He's thinking about how they didn't really look for Ed Corcoran or Betty or Georgie; he's thinking about how they rolled their eyes, standing around with Betty's mom like there wasn't any hope. They didn't even try to stop the suited men, to fight it. He holds a deep grudge against Derry cops, Derry grown-ups. They still don't notice things, or at least are willing to ignore them. 

"At least no one is trying to kick us out of town," Richis points out. 

"Yet." Eddie sighs, yanking the door open. "I'm sure that's fucking coming."

\---

Five kids have gone missing, most recently Jerry Bellwood. The next logical step seems to be to talk to the families. Richie and Eddie make the calls in the front seat of their car, pulled around and parked near the giant Paul Bunyan statue they used to climb on as little kids. They get one outright no, one person who hangs up when Richie says they're from the FBI, and two people who don't pick up. But the Bellwoods, who seem desperate for information, agree to talk to them later that day. "This is good," Richie says when they hang up. "They might have some information on the suited men, or what happened to… we might can find out what happened. Or maybe find Jerry."

"Right." Eddie swallows, looking down at his shoes on the floor mat. Bill insisted that Georgie wasn't dead—that none of them were dead—that whole summer. Eddie isn't sure how Bill took the appearance of all the bodies but Georgie's—he wasn't here—but he still sometimes wonders if Bill still thinks Georgie is alive somehow. He blames aliens, and he knows that Betty and Ed and Patrick and all of them died—does he think that they were alive for a while before they died? How long does he think Georgie stayed alive? What is he thinking now? 

"Richie, do you… do you really think Jerry Bellwood is still alive?" he asks, gingerly. "Or any of the kids who haven't been found yet?"

Richie swallows hard. "I dunno, Eds," he says. "I hope so. I hope we can save somebody."

Eddie sighs, turns and lets his forehead fall against the glass. "Yeah, me too," he says. That's always what they're hoping, every damn time. 

In the space between now and meeting with the Bellwoods, they decide to go and look at the site where Jerry disappeared. There's photos, photos that are abnormally grainy and blurry (either as a result of shitty crime scene photography or of the fact that they are secondhand printouts), but it still seems worth it to check it out in person. "Maybe they missed something," Richie says. "Or maybe he'll still be in the area." It seems like idealistic thinking, but neither of them can bring themselves to point this out. 

Jerry Bellwood disappeared in the Barrens. The witness statements are heavily redacted, blacked out—"Suited men fucking strike again," Richie grumbles—but they're able to deduce the approximate location from the report. They know the Barrens well, and Richie is sure they'll be able to find the crime scene. "If that's really where he vanished," Eddie says. "There's a good chance that the report's fabricated or falsified."

"We should know by tonight, if we can get the Bellwoods to trust us," says Richie. 

So they head for the Barrens. But it's a bit of a longer trip than usual. For one, Eddie can't find his way around town. He keeps getting stuck on different roads and taking wrong turns. "Been a long time, Eddie Spaghetti," Richie offers. And for another thing, they keep getting caught by familiar places. Keep remembering things—not things from that summer, but things from when they were kids, the types of things that sort of naturally slip away with age. They linger unconsciously over the elementary school, and the playground where they used to play after school on Fridays, and the theater where they went often to see movies or play in the arcade, and the drug store where they used to buy snacks or sodas. They have to park by Mr. Keene's pharmacy because Richie won't stop cracking up about the "robbery" he claims that Eddie committed alongside Bill and Stan. "It was fucking ridiculous, you guys thought you'd gotten away with a major crime or something!" he says between chortles, wiping his eyes like it's so hilarious he's in tears. 

"That does not sound real," says Eddie. 

"Fuck, no, Eddie, it happened! Ask Bill and Stan. You had to do it because Ben had gotten cut up by Bowers, remember? I… I think someone helped you out, in there, but…" Richie's voice trails off, his forehead furrowing in confusion. "Anyways. Keene was pretty easy to fool. He was thick as a fucking brick wall, remember?"

It's Eddie's turn to mull over this in confusion. He starts to agree with Richie and then his brain gets stuck on the words, like he doesn't quite agree with them. But he isn't quite sure why. "No," he says softly. "I don't think he was."

The town is full of Missing Kid Posters, on almost every wall and telephone pole in town. Jerry, John Feury, Frederick Cowan, Laurie Ann Winterbarger, Dawn Roy. The sight of them brings back as much regression as everything else, but maybe worse—maybe worse because of everything Richie and Eddie have done at the FBI.

Everything brings back a memory, and it only gets worse when they get down into the Barrens. They used to play all the time down here. The little creek that flows into it was their summer swimming spot before they got old enough to brave the quarry, and they used to play hide and seek or go camping down there in the years before Georgie disappeared. They hung out down by the Kissing Bridge sometimes and threw rocks into the creek below. Ben built them a clubhouse down here. They did swim in the quarry when they got older, and Richie and Eddie find themselves at the edge of it on their way to the Barrens, looking down over the drop—which is now blocked off with a railing and a sign, rightfully so. "That is fucking insane," says Eddie, looking down at the drop with disbelief. "I can't believe our parents ever let us  _ play _ here."

"If I'm remembering right, our parents didn't  _ know  _ we played here. That was the point." Richie cranes his neck to look down, looking to be on the verge of scaling the railing himself. "I don't think we jumped a lot anyways," he adds. "Spit over the edge mostly, and then we climbed down to the bottom cause no one wanted to go first. We were chickens." He adds some  _ bawk- _ ing sounds for effect.

"Maybe  _ you  _ were," Eddie says.

Richie bursts into crazed laughter, leaning heavily on Eddie's shoulder. "Still got some good chucks in ya, Agent Spaghetti?" he says. "Do you remember the night I talked you into sneaking out during a sleepover and going night swimming?" 

"That sounds like exactly the kind of fucking thing you would do because it's absolutely idiotic. Do you know how dangerous swimming here at night would be?  _ Alone _ ? I'm surprised we didn't fucking drown!" Richie laughs wildly. Eddie rubs the back of his neck gingerly, looking down at the deep water spreading out from the edge of the drop; he doesn't remember much of it, except for Richie telling dumb ghost stories in the pitch-black water to freak him out, and then grabbing Eddie's hand when Eddie started cussing him out to cover up the fact that he was terrified. They just held hands in the cold water, like it helped because neither of them wanted to admit they were scared. He doesn't think Richie let go for a long time. 

"Do you remember the first time we brought Ben here?" he says instead of that. "You cheated at the loogie game. We all chickened out of jumping."

"Hey, no, you completely ignored the  _ rules  _ of the loogie game," Richie says. "Who finally manned the fuck up and took the leap? I wasn't first but I know I jumped eventually. Hurt like hell."

"No fucking kidding," says Eddie. He tries to remember who went first, pitching his mind back, but once again, it gets stuck over that detail. He remembers someone pushing past them, running to the edge and jumping without hesitation—but he doesn't know  _ who.  _ "I don't know," he says. "I don't… I don't think it was one of us. It was someone else that jumped first." 

Richie stares at him, a little slack-jawed. "You sure?"

"Yeah." Eddie sighs and loosens his tie a little. It really is hot out here. "Pretty sure."

Richie laughs a little, shrugging and looking back over the quarry. "Maybe it's the mysterious  _ she  _ from my dream," he says quietly. 

"Did you ever ask the others about that?" asks Eddie. "See what they remembered?"

"Yeah. Bill and Mike had no idea what I was talking about. Wondered if maybe I meant Stan's high school girlfriend or something. Ben said he kind of remembered somebody who hung out with us a lot, but he didn't remember when or what her name was. He said it could've been after that summer, before he moved away. But  _ you _ were definitely there in the dream." Richie shrugs, turning away from the quarry. "I'm sure we'll figure it out eventually, ya know? That's why we're here, right? To figure shit out?"

"Right," Eddie says. On a whim, he pulls out his own phone and checks it. They've got another message from their boss, asking if they've gone to Derry without permission. He ignores it. "Did they say if they were on the way?"

"They're leaving later today. Mike has some meeting with a non Blow Job Ron informant, wanted to see if he could get any info," says Richie. "They'll be here sometime tomorrow." He kicks at the grass a little. "They haven't said anything about telling Stan yet. I guess we'll figure that part out." 

"Guess so," says Eddie. 

It feels strange to be here without the others, considering everything that's happened down here. But still, they are alone, and they have to find a crime scene. So they pick their way down through the woods towards the site of Jerry Bellwood's disappearance. It's near a site known locally as "The Swimming Hole," also known as a part of the creek deep enough for smaller kids to splash around in. The non-redacted part of the report posits that drowning is the cause of death for Jerry Bellwood, but Eddie isn't buying into it. It wasn't a rainy day; if Jerry had drowned, how had nobody found the body? Still, Richie knows how to get to the Swimming Hole, and before long they're in a clearing in the swampy woods with a gathering of slightly deeper water, and grass and dirt matted down by the footsteps of cops and people searching. The scene is not roped off, however; aside from footprints and one limp piece of yellow crime scene tape hanging from a branch, it's abandoned. 

Richie and Eddie both fall a little quieter at the sight of the crime scene, shaken out of the temptation of childhood memories and thrust into the reality of the missing kids. Dawn and John have been found; Laurie Ann and Frederick and Jerry are still missing. And here is where Jerry went missing. It's a little sobering; it's happening all over again, the horrifying parts of their childhood.

"Okay," says Eddie. "Here's what we know, which isn't much. Jerry Bellwood disappeared a week ago, a few days after his classmate John Feury was found dead. He disappeared here, in the Barrens."

"Reported witnesses are his parents, whose witness statements have been redacted, predictably," Richie adds. "The searches were called off sometime in the last week, presumably because the men in black were breathing down the cops' necks. They claim that Jerry Bellwood is dead, although this isn't recorded in the file. Or at least not the copy that Mike and Ben got us." He takes a deep breath, leaning against a tree. "Not that I'm not grateful to my dear roommates for getting us a copy. But you'd think that our  _ esteemed  _ FBI status would give us some kinda advantage."

Eddie snorts. "No fucking way, Trashmouth. We're the FBI's most unwanted, remember?"

"Right." Richie sighs, scuffing the ground with one toe. "Blood was found at the scene. Not enough to have bled to death. And that's about it. No way to figure out where he went, or where to look…"

"Maybe if we just look in the area nearby, we can find something," Eddie says. 

"Sure." Richie stands up straight, dusting his hands off on his pants. "Do you ever feel like our entire job is just tramping around in the woods?"

"At least it isn't raining," says Eddie, falling into step beside him. 

\---

They spend the next hour poking around in the area, looking in familiar hiding places, calling Jerry's name. They mostly follow the creek—exploring the drowning lead, they guess, even though it doesn't seem credible. Richie even wades into the swimming hole, up to his waist, and shines his flashlight at the murky bottom to make sure nobody is down there, but he finds nothing.

It's no use. Jerry Bellwood is nowhere to be found. Richie figures if he was abducted and is still alive, he probably doesn't have the ability to yell out and tell people where he is, but it still feels irresponsible not to look. But then again, they did this for Georgie two or three times a week for months, and they never found him. This is all probably futile, but he can't help wanting to look. He can never help wanting to look. 

They stop after about an hour, peeling off their jackets again and settling in a clearing. Eddie sits cross-legged on the ground and wipes his forehead with the back of one hand. Richie passes him a lukewarm water bottle from the inside of his jacket. "Should've known this wouldn't yield much," he says. 

"Yeah." Eddie doesn't look up, unscrewing the top of his water bottle. "I know neither of us want to admit this, Rich, but there's a good chance that Jerry Bellwood is dead. And Laurie Ann and Frederick, too. Considering the M.O…" 

"I know." Richie sighs, wiping sweat out of his eyes. He's used to this, after years at the FBI—and he's not Bill, he spent a lot of time with the others suspecting that Georgie was dead early that summer—but it doesn't make it easier. It's still tempting to hope they can save people. "We don't know all the details yet. We'll be able to investigate more fully after we talk to the parents tonight," he adds. 

"Right." Eddie takes a long swig from the water bottle before passing it back to Richie. 

Richie drinks himself, looking out over the scenery absently. The Barrens were around all his childhood, and they don't just mean Georgie and disappearances and monsters, but after everything, it's hard to see them any other way. In high school, he used to come down here with the others, at night, and constantly be creeped out; he would think of that summer and of Bill's stories, and through the gaps in the leaves, he would look for lights in the sky. 

He says suddenly, his mind now on UFOs and tractor beams and all the abductees stories he's heard in his lifetime, "Do you think we were abducted as kids?" 

Eddie blinks up at him in absent surprise. "What?"

"You know, like Georgie was, according to Bill's theory." Richie sits on the grass next to him, crossing his legs. "Something happened that we can't remember. You broke your arm. And the suited men grabbed us and took us home. If there are aliens in Derry and the suited men are trying to cover it up…" 

"If we were abducted," says Eddie, shredding a piece of grass between two fingers, "how did we survive? Why did we make it out and the others didn't?"

Richie shrugs, chewing at his lower lip. "Maybe we were lucky," he says. "Maybe it doesn't kill people right away." Part of him desperately wants this to be true—if it is, there's a chance at saving Jerry Bellwood, maybe. And part of him doesn't want to believe it. If it doesn't kill who it takes right away, then that means they had a chance to save Georgie. They just took too long. He bites down on his lower lip too hard and tastes blood in his mouth. 

"You said 'It,'" says Eddie. 

Richie drags one hand across his mouth in an irritated motion. "What?"

"When talking about… whatever did this," he says. "The… aliens or whatever. You said 'it.' Shouldn't it be 'them?'"

Richie swallows, blinks in surprise. "Shit, I've never even thought about that," he says. "We've been calling it 'It' for a while, haven't we? Not  _ them _ ."

Eddie shrugs. "I've heard the theory before, but going over it again, since we're here…"

"Sure, Spaghetti," says Richie. 

"Don't call me that." He shakes his head exasperatedly. "Aliens abducted Georgie, when we were kids. And the other kids. They did whatever they wanted and they killed them. The government was trying to cover it up."

"Like Roswell," Richie offers. The oft-mentioned Roswell. 

Eddie rolls his eyes. "Sure. So they send the suited men to scare the Denbroughs into submission. They bury the evidence. And when it emerges despite their efforts, they pin the whole thing on Henry Bowers."

"Who definitely murdered his father, at least, cause he's a fucking psychopath," Richie says, not for the first time.

"Right." Eddie brushes grass off his hands and turns back to look at Richie. "And according to the others, and the evidence we've found, this is happening again. It's a cycle of every twenty-seven years, the abductions and the killings. It correlates back to events like the Ironworks Explosion and the Bradley Gang and the Black Spot… That's what might have happened to Jerry Bellwood and those other kids."

Richie shrugs. "That's what we're here to figure out, isn't it?"

Eddie sighs, looking back down at his shoes. "It sounds fucking nuts, Rich. If I hadn't lived this, I wouldn't believe it."

"Yeah, but you don't believe anything anyway." Richie jostles their shoulders together. "What makes this any different?"

"We know that something happened, something took those kids, the suited men were hiding something. And something took our memories. Maybe it's aliens, or maybe it's… something else. Something else fucking weird. Who the hell knows?" Eddie shrugs aggressively. 

"I dunno." Richie shifts his position, their knees knocking together. The creek gurgles in front of them. They tried to build a dam once in that creek; Richie thinks Ben showed them how to do it. He pokes Eds in the elbow. "Hey, Eddie?"

"Yeah?"

"You know what I've always found weird about the alien theory? For like a while now?"

"What's that?"

"Aliens come from the sky, right?" Richie points upwards at the layer of leaves and makes a weird noise that's supposed to be a UFO, but sounds more like he swallowed a kazoo. Not his best, but he hasn't had a lot of avenues to practice since college, anyways. Eddie swats him lightly and he grins sheepishly and shrugs. "So why the hell did all the bodies come out of the sewers?"

"They came out of the  _ sewers _ ?"

"Yeah, didn't you… Oh, I guess you left first. Yeah, it was all anyone could talk about at school that fall. They found all the bodies at the mouth of the sewer, down in the Barrens. And when Bowers was arrested, he was covered in sewage." Eddie shudders next to him. Richie grimaces and says, "Didn't you read that in any of those true crime books people wrote about Bowers?"

"No, because I didn't actually wanna read all that shit."

"Oh. Well, we all read them cause Mike thought they'd have clues. It was a bunch of propaganda garbage. Doesn't matter. Tell me this, Dr. K…" Richie holds up a dramatic finger. "If aliens are involved, why were they in the sewers and not, like, falling out of the sky?"

"That sounds fucking ridiculous, Richie, but I guess they  _ could  _ have fallen out of the sky…" Eddie shrugs. "Maybe the suited men stashed them there. Who the fuck thinks to look underground."

"It makes sense, actually," says Richie. "Remember the testimony I took from Bill, for Georgie's X-File? He mentions voices in the sewers. And do you remember where Georgie disappeared? Those crime scene photos Mike pulled? It was near a storm drain." He leans forward and rubs his forehead, shoving up his glasses. "Who wants to tell Big Bill we figured it out? It's a fucking sewer-dwelling alien!" He waggles his fingers and makes one of those creepy  _ woooooo _ -ing sounds you hear on, like, Halloween sound effects tapes for kids. 

Eddie's still thinking, silent next to Richie. Richie guesses it's a lot to take in. Surprisingly fucking enough, in his years of searching with the guys, sewers haven't really come up a lot in recent years. Maybe because they all know the details of the case so well that it seems silly to rehash them. What do the sewers have to do with anything? 

"Rich." Eddie seizes Richie's arm abruptly. He turns immediately to look at Eddie, who says slowly, "You and Bill found Betty Ripsom's shoe in the sewers."

The memory comes back slowly: Kid Eddie and Stan outside the sewer. Him and Bill inside the sewer. Bill holding up a tennis shoe, a bloody tennis shoe. Richie hopping around on one foot, trying to make a joke.  _ B. Ripsom. _

"Shit." Richie grabs Eddie's arm right back. " _ Shit _ , yeah, we did! I fucking forgot… did you just remember that?"

Eddie nods enthusiastically. "Yeah, yeah, I remembered part of it before, but the whole thing just came back. Bill found the shoe. You made a dumb joke."

"Fuck, Eds, that could be any point in time." It's not really a happy occasion, but Richie is grinning, giddily, he can't help it. They're remembering stuff they didn't remember before. They might be getting close to the truth. "We're starting to remember, I think," he says. "We're starting to  _ remember,  _ Eds. We might remember all of it soon."

\---

The Bellwoods live in the neighborhood where they grew up—actually, their house is right down the street from where Eddie used to live. Not far from Neibolt Street. Eddie thinks he might actually know the house; he thinks it used to be one of their favorite houses to trick or treat at, because of the spooky decorations they'd always have out front. He doesn't think the Bellwoods lived there then. 

The inside, meanwhile, looks shockingly familiar—not because either of them have been here before, but because of their slight familiarity with people grieving, between Bill and the missing person or murder cases they've worked. Some people clean like crazy, and some people let it all pile up… Bill's parents fell into the latter. The week or two between Georgie's disappearance and his funeral was marked with the house being messier than ever, dishes piled in the sink, laundry piled on the furniture… The Bellwoods' house is like that, too. Messy in the matter of grief. They recognize it. 

The parents are nice enough, all things considered. The father is stonily silent while the mother talks a lot, rapidly, like she's talking through tears. They shake Eddie's and Richie's hands at the door, and Mrs. Bellwood softens a little when Eddie mentions they grew up in Derry. "I grew up here, too," she says, opening the door wider so they can come in. "I… remember the crime spree in the late 80's, the crimes Henry Bowers committed. I was little then, but I remember my parents being scared. And then he was arrested, and I thought… it's silly, but I thought it wouldn't happen again." She bows her head embarrassedly.

Mr. Bellwood stares at them with the kind of scrutiny they've more than gotten used to. "We weren't expecting anyone from your neck of the woods to show any more interest in Jerry," he says, a little coldly. "We were told by multiple law enforcement officers that Jerry was dead, and we shouldn't look for him. That we should give up."

"But…" Mrs. Bellwood adds falteringly, "we were hopeful when we got your call. The men that were here before, they told us that they'd let us know if anything changed…" 

"... although they didn't expect it to," Mr. Bellwood adds grimly. 

"We hoped that something  _ had _ changed when you called," Mrs. Bellwood finishes. "Since you said you were from the FBI."

Eddie and Richie exchange a look. Eddie clears his throat. "The men that were here before… they were from the government, too? Did they say which department?"

"Yes, they were," says Mrs. Bellwood. "And no, they didn't. They just said that they were from the government and they were here because of Jerry."

"And that we should stop looking for him," says Mr. Bellwood. His voice breaks at that. "That we should stop looking for our  _ son _ ."

They're both staring at Richie and Eddie hopefully, eagerness all over their faces. Eddie shifts on the couch awkwardly, feeling out of place. This doesn't feel like their normal cases, where they can offer some kind of reassurance; they really have no idea what's happening here anymore than the Bellwoods. They're thirteen here with all kinds of questions. 

"We remember the disappearances in the 80's, too," says Richie. Mr. Bellwood looks a little annoyed at this, but Mrs. Bellwood nods a little, so Richie keeps going. "Our friend Bill lost somebody in them. His little brother. Disappeared during a rainstorm." He clears his throat, sitting up straighter on the couch. "The same thing happened to his family. His parents. We were there and we overheard it. Men who said they were from the government came and told them that their son was dead and they should give up."

Mrs. Bellwood's eyes widen. Mr. Bellwood sits up straighter. Eddie swallows hard and offers up some kind of prayer in the hope that the Bellwoods won't think they're both crazy and throw them out. It's happened before. 

"Why would they do the same thing thirty years apart?" Mr. Bellwood asks, skepticism in his tone. "You're not saying that…"

"We had a lot of encounters with these types of men when we were kids," Eddie says. "We tried to help our friend find his brother, and the other kids who went missing, but we were always stopped by these men who said they were from the government. Eventually, they got our parents involved. Scared my mom into moving away so we'd stop looking." 

"This is going to sound crazy, but what happened when I was a kid really affected me," says Richie. "It's a big part of the reason I went into the FBI. So when we heard that kids were missing again… we knew it was time to come back. We want to stop this from happening again, and we want to figure out what's causing it."

Mrs. Bellwood wipes her eyes with her sleeve. "You… think that the government is covering up whatever happened to those kids in the 80's," she says. "And what's happening now. What happened to our son."

"Yes," Richie says. Eddie nods gingerly. 

They don't protest. They just look at them, their faces not showing any emotion but grief. Mrs. Bellwood sniffles. Mr. Bellwood says, "But  _ you're _ from the government."

Richie coughs a little. "We are," Eddie says. "We're not with… whoever is doing this."

The Bellwoods don't say anything, although Mr. Bellwood still looks skeptical. Richie keeps talking. "We want to help you find out what happened to your son. What  _ really  _ happened to your son. The truth."

Mrs. Bellwood sniffles again loudly. "We want that," she says quietly. 

"Can you tell us a little bit about what happened?" Eddie asks gently. 

Mr. Bellwood sighs, rubbing his eyes. Mrs. Bellwood says, "We went on a little hike that day in the woods. A hike that lasted all day. Towards the end of the day, we ended up down in the Barrens, near the creek. Paul and I stopped to rest for a minute, and Jerry wanted to run down and wade in the creek. I… I said yes." Her face crumples with guilt, and Eddie has to look away. This part never gets any easier over the years, and being back in Derry, it's hard not to think about Georgie and the other kids. To remember his mother saying,  _ I have some bad news, Eddie-bear. Little George Denbrough has gone missing,  _ to remember looking in the woods and slogging through the mud and Bill crying. 

Mrs. Bellwood is still talking. "He was gone for about twenty minutes. We thought he was nearby. We were sitting a ways up from the creek, and I was just thinking I should call him back when we heard the screaming." 

Her voice really does break this time, and she begins crying. Eddie's throat tightens, expectedly, and he looks up and towards Mrs. Bellwood. "It's okay," he says quietly. "Take your time."

Mrs. Bellwood grabs a Kleenex to blow her nose. "W-when we got down to the creek, he was gone," she says. "He didn't answer when he called. We couldn't find him in the water. We found… a little bit of blood on a rock, but no sign of Jerry. We called the police and they couldn't find him either. They told us he had probably drowned."

"We're so sorry," says Eddie, his voice thick. He really doesn't like this part. It's hard to know what to say, what to do, even with his history of being involved with missing people—he never knew what to say to Bill, either. He much prefers the safety of a lab or even to be mucking around in the woods with Richie. 

Richie clears his throat awkwardly. "Do you remember anything out of the ordinary about that day?" he asks. "Maybe your son acting oddly, or… anything strange about the environment? Voices, or… lights in the sky?"

Eddie has an urge to elbow Richie, but doesn't, both for reasons of professionalism and the fact that these are the questions they  _ need _ to be asking, even if it does sound insane. It drives him nuts, having to ask about the supernatural and the unexplained phenomena shit; people never react well. Can't they just stick to the government coverup? He can't stand the whole people staring at them like they're nuts or throwing them out of the house thing. (Another reason to dislike this part.)

Mrs. Bellwood shakes her head. Mr. Bellwood's eyes narrow. "What the hell are you talking about?" he snaps. "What are you insinuating, some nonsense about aliens?"

"His questions are based on the witness statements from the other disappearances," Eddie says quickly before Richie has a chance. "There were reports of lights in the sky at the scene of the disappearances in the 80's."

"What the hell does that have to do with anything? I don't see why you're making some kind of connections between the 80's and now. The killer's in prison, right?" Mr. Bellwood is scowling. 

"We suspect that Henry Bowers might not be responsible for…" Richie starts. 

"Sounds like a load of shit to me. For all I could know, you could be with those men who pressured the police and my wife and I into giving up. What's your angle here?" Mr. Bellwood snaps. "Can you tell me what you think happened to your son? Can you tell me if he's dead or alive?"

Eddie and Richie exchange an uncertain look. They  _ don't  _ have all the details, and Eddie thinks it would be unwise to tell them what little ideas they do have. He shoots a look at Richie meant to convey,  _ No,  _ and turns back to the Bellwoods. Mrs. Bellwood is still sniffling and wiping her eyes. Mr. Bellwood has his arms crossed. His expression isn't any more forgiving. It seems like the least opportune time to explain the X-Files unit, much less their memory loss and Bill's alien theory. There aren't many people who take that seriously. 

"No, we can't," Richie says gently, apologetically. It's always jarring to see him talk like this; Eddie felt a bit of a disconnect when he first started working with Richie, between the apologetic FBI agent and the loudmouthed kid with not a lot of tact. (Which isn't to say Richie isn't still a loudmouthed joking asshole sometimes, but he's better at picking the times.) He's good at this, even if he's expressed as much discomfort with it as Eddie has. 

"We can't tell you anything for certain," Ruchie continues. "But we're here to try and figure it out."

\---

Out in the car, Richie climbs in the front seat feeling drained. "We didn't get very much new information," he says to Eddie. "No real clues as to if something else could have happened to Jerry—it sounds like the same scenario Georgie went missing in."

"That's the idea, isn't it?" Eddie says with a sigh. "We should talk to the other parents if we can, make sure that the other kids disappeared under similar circumstances… but I think that our best bet is to try and find what's doing this."

"The aliens," says Richie. 

Eddie shoots him a look. "Sure, sure, whatever," he says hurriedly. "We can try and remember what happened that summer. Or try and establish a pattern, maybe. If we can figure out who's next, maybe we can save them." 

Richie sighs, starting the car in one fluid motion. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, that'd be nice. Save somebody for a change." A sudden flicker of memory shoots across his mind: the sound of screaming. Of him screaming, screaming and reaching and shouting,  _ You fuckers, let him go!  _ But it's gone as fast as it came. He shudders all over as he pulls away from the curb. 

"We save plenty of people, Rich," Eddie says quietly, suddenly somber. 

"We didn't then." Richie stares out the front of the windshield at the setting sun. He feels like Bill, insisting they had to keep going. He remembers somebody else saying,  _ We all know nobody else is going to do anything, _ to urge them to keep looking. But he doesn't remember who. 

"We were  _ thirteen _ ! We were kids!"

"We clearly did something right. Why'd they erase our memories otherwise?" Richie clears his throat and changes the subject. "Heard from our favorite paranoid trio?"

"Ben texted. They're stopping in New York for the night. Bill wants to know if we remembered anything or found anything of significance."

"Whatcha gonna tell him? Nothing very exciting, I guess," says Richie. "Guess what, Big Bill? We remembered an exciting  _ shoe _ !"

"Better than nothing, isn't it?" Eddie's thumbs move rapidly as he texts them back. "I'm nervous about them coming—I'm always nervous when they get involved with a case, honestly—but I'm also sort of glad. We were all together that summer. It doesn't feel like we should be doing this alone."

"It can't really be like that summer unless Stan is here, too. I still think we need to tell him," says Richie. "Even if he doesn't want to come. He deserves to know."

"I don't know if the others would agree…" Eddie says tentatively. 

Richie thumps a palm on the steering wheel firmly. "Screw the others. I mean, I love 'em, but screw 'em," he says firmly. "You and I are here. What do you think, Eds?"

"They said they'd fill him in," Eddie says. 

"But have they yet?" Richie takes a turn and rolls to a stop in a parking place outside the diner downtown. He turns to look at Eddie, prodding him with his eyes. 

Eddie sighs. "Fuck. Yeah, I think we need to tell him. Or at least check in. When's the last time you talked to them?"

"I talked to Patty on Saturday," says Richie. 

"I called Stan before we left for Florida," says Eddie. "They're looking forward to Buenos Aires. Glad it's summer. You know. They're happy."

Richie laughs, a little bitterly. "Nauseating fucks," he says fondly, unthreading his tie from his jacket. "You're making me feel real fucking guilty for having to break this horrible news, Eds."

Eddie holds up both hands innocently. "Hey, don't look at me, this was your idea."

"Riiiiight." Richie sticks his tongue out, making a face. "Just keep telling yourself that, you tiny bastard."

"Hey, fuck you." Eddie flips the bird. Richie bursts into wild laughter, and Eddie slumps back in his seat, muttering something under his breath. "You're right, you know," he adds after a few moments, his voice bitter like he doesn't like to admit it. (Richie likes to say that "you're" and "right" are Eddie's least favorite words, in that order.) "This doesn't feel right without Stan. None of it does. He was one of the Losers—we're not the Loser's Club without him. I miss him."

Richie wipes at his eyes under his glasses and sits up straighter. "Yeah, I miss him, too," he says. "He should live closer. And Patty, too. They're way too fun to tease." He groans, shoving his glasses up on his forehead. "He won't wanna come, but Bill and Mike are gonna be the first to point out that we can't do this without him. Lucky Seven, you know?"

"Right," says Eddie. "Except—" He breaks off abruptly. When Richie looks at him, his face is crumpled with confusion. "What the fuck are you talking about?" he says. "There's six of us. You, me, Bill, Mike, Ben, Stan. Are you counting Patty and Audra?"

"That's eight, fuckface." Richie is confused, too, stuck on the mention of  _ seven _ —once again, his brain is blank, skipping over that detail like a broken record. What the  _ fuck _ ? "I… I don't know why I said that," he says absently. "I don't…" 

Abruptly, the radio springs to life again, bursting into loud static the way it had that morning. Richie looks immediately to the knob, but Eddie's hands are nowhere near it. 

"What the fuck?" Eddie hisses, reaching for the knob, but before he can turn it off, the radio begins shifting channels rapidly. Scraps of songs slip through, a jarble of lyrics and shards of melodies, and static, endless static. The songs slow gradually until the words are discernible—the voices, more warped than any singers Richie's heard in a while, are simply saying, " _ Come… home… come home… _ "

"Shit," Richie hisses. "Shit, Eds, what the fuck is happening…"

"I don't know!" Eddie shouts, and reaches for the knob again, but then a clearer voice comes through. No more music, just static, and a tiny, wobbling voice. " _ Richie? Eddie? _ " it says. " _ You took so long to come home!" _

Eddie lets out a strangled whimper and abruptly drops his hand. "Georgie," Richie chokes out. He hasn't heard that voice in almost twenty-eight years. 

" _ You finally came home!" _ the voice says. " _ You finally came home… and Billy is coming, too. And when he gets here, we can float… _ " The voice begins to warp, pitching deeper and stranger, saying, " _ We can all float… _ "

Richie's hand shoots out rapidly and hits the knob, but the radio doesn't go off. The static increases and it switches again, suddenly, different voices missing together. Bill as a child: " _He's still alive… They're lying and he's still alive… Fuck you, Richie! Fuck you, take it back, take it back!_ " Greta Bowie, snickering in the hallway: " _They say there was blood all over the pavement_ …" Henry Bowers: " _Get the fuck out of here_ —!" And Stan, Stan as a child, screaming, " _You left me! You're not my friends_!" Eddie is wheezing, he can't breathe, and Richie is hitting the knob again and again, but it won't go off, and the voices keep coming. Georgie screaming, " _Billy!_ " Mike shouting, " _It's not loaded, it's not loaded!_ " Ben screaming, " _Stop it, stop it—where are you taking her? Leave her alone!"_ Eddie's mom shouting, _"I always knew you'd leave me, Eddie-bear! I always knew…_ " A deep voice droning, " _Want a kiss, Richie?_ " Bill's voice, shaking, saying, _"IT, Richie… It got Beverly…"_ Henry Bowers baa-ing, an unfamiliar voice shouting, laughter. Inhuman laughter, loud and wild and rising, and the same voice screeching, " _Welcome home, Losers! Welc—_ " 

With a pathetic shout and a shaking hand, Richie turns off the car, turning the keys sharply. The radio goes silent. The only sound in the car is Eddie in the midst of an asthma attack. 

"Rich…" he hisses out between clenched teeth, and Richie fumbles wildly for Eddie's bag, yanking out his inhaler from where he keeps it in the side pockets. He passes it to Eddie, his hands still shaking wildly. Eddie shoves the inhaler in his mouth and yanks the trigger. 

Richie watches him with wide eyes, driven into panic despite sitting through these attacks with Eddie for literally all of their childhood (and their time working together), and doesn't look away until Eddie seizes his hand. He looks down then, in habitual surprise, and then yanks his eyes away to look back at Eddie, his own breathing ragged. He holds on tight, their intertwined fingers halting the shaking, and doesn't let go until they're both breathing steadily again. 

\---

They go back to the hotel after that, because they're both exhausted, and don't see the point in doing much else. They're too shaken to investigate anything anyways, and Richie points out that they can just order takeout at the hotel. They're staying at the Derry Town House, which has literally been around forever, and while they've gotten two rooms per their usual Bureau budget, Eddie follows Richie into his room, and Richie doesn't say a word. He doesn't want to be alone, either. 

Eddie texts the others to fill them in; Richie doesn't have the energy. Instead, he makes some notes on their meager finds of the day. Good to keep track of info, and also good for writing a report. According to Eddie, their boss has guessed they went ahead to Derry and isn't happy about it, but Richie is still holding out hope that they'll be able to pass this off as a case. Government dollars, right? 

A couple hours after their arrival, after they've finished off a pizza and have spent some time flipping through the channels on the TV, one of them finally brings up the scene in the car. It's Eddie, surprisingly enough, and it's to say, "What the fuck  _ was  _ that back there?"

Richie rubs his glasses on the hem of his shirt. "I can tell ya what Bill and Mike would say," he says, and pitches his voice lower to do a bad imitation of Bill. " _ Extraterrestrial activity can interfere with radio signals… _ "

"That was not fucking interference," Eddie snaps. 

"What about that floating shit?" Richie points out. " _ We all float…  _ What do people do when they get sucked into a tractor beam?"

He's joking and they both know it, so he shuts up when Eddie throws him a dirty look. They sit in silence for a few minutes before Eddie speaks again. "All that stuff we heard…" he says, shuddering. "I don't remember that. I don't remember any of it. The things Bill or Mike or Ben or Stan said…"

"Me either," Richie says, which is partially a lie, but he doesn't care. He recognized one of the things Bowers said, from some time when he went to the arcade that summer and had a bad run-in with Bowers' cousin. He's never told the Losers about that and he doesn't plan to, nor does he wanna talk about the weird, creepy kiss comment the radio made. Based on Eddie's reaction, he's guessing Eddie doesn't wanna delve into personal shit either. "Did you hear when it said  _ Beverly _ ?" he asks, to change the subject. 

"Yeah," says Eddie. "That sounds familiar, but I don't know why."

"I do—it's the name of Ben's imaginary girlfriend, remember?" Richie is joking, but Eddie's eyes widen at that. They're both probably thinking the same thing: Beverly was a conspiracy theorist too. Beverly was hiding from the government. Beverly inspired Ben to get back in touch with the rest of them. 

"That's significant, don't you think?" Eddie asks. 

Richie shrugs. "I don't know. We can ask Ben, I guess."

"Yeah." Eddie grabs the remote and starts flipping channels again. 

Richie checks his own phone now that it's quiet. It's low on battery life, among other things, and doesn't really have much worth noticing aside from the messages from Ben, Bill, and Mike. Richie opens up his messages from Stan and scrolls up a little, absently. They haven't mentioned Derry or the search for the truth or whatever in months. Eddie was right when he said Stan is happy; it's common knowledge that he's happy, and they're all a little jealous of it. Richie does miss him. And he wants Stan to be here, or to be in the loop about things—he deserves that—but after everything that happened in the car, he doesn't know if he can bear to shatter that happiness. He keeps returning to the horror in kid Stan's voice over the radio, the fear:  _ You left me! You're not my friends!  _ Sure, it might've been faked, some weird-ass trick shit, but with what little they do actually remember, they all know that Stan really was that scared. He'll be scared again if Richie tells him what's going on. He won't want to come back. 

Richie is going to tell Stan what's going on—he's planning on it—but when it comes down to the moment, he chickens out. He sends instead,  _ whats shakin stancakes??? u n pattycakes left for argentina yet? ;););););)  _ Then he puts the phone down and stretches out lazily on the bed. "Jesus, Eddie, I'm exhausted," he mutters. "Returning to your hometown and searching for missing kids and having a radio go all bonkers on you wears me out." 

"No fucking kidding." Eddie snorts, then goes a little quiet. "Yeah. I'm tired, too."

Richie messes with the remote a little bit, pulling it back over to his side. He can kind of gauge what Eddie is thinking—and he's definitely thinking it, too. "Y'know, Eddie Spaghetti…" he begins gingerly. "If you're scared to, ya know, sleep alone…"

"Oh, sure, pin it all on me, you fucking coward. You take up half the fucking bed with your enormous feet," Eddie grumbles, in a way that Richie can tell he isn't really mad, sliding off the bed.

Richie plays it as cool as he possibly can because there really isn't another choice. (They do this often enough that he shouldn't get so fucking shaken up every time, but predictably, he does.) He makes a face and says, "Well, if you  _ want  _ to stay alone…"

Eddie grimaces at him without any malice. "Knock it the fuck off." His voice goes a little softer then. "I'm gonna go get my stuff, okay?" 

"Sure, Spaghetti Man. Sure." Eddie flips him off over his shoulder as he leaves the room, and Richie gleefully flips off the closed door. Alone in the room, he stares at the carpet for a moment, trying to calm his wildly flipping stomach. He chews on a thumbnail for a minute before forcing himself to stand, shake it off. He changes quickly, brushes his teeth, turns off the overhead light and climbs back into bed. The side he usually takes when they do this. He grabs the remote and starts flipping through channels again. 

This started being a habit about a year and a half, two years ago? Richie can't exactly remember. There was a bad case a while ago, much worse than the ones they usually worked, and they were both shaken by the end. Quiet, jumpy, eyeing empty corners. Anyways, by the end of it all, they couldn't stand to stay in the town where they'd worked the case, and had driven a couple towns over just to avoid staying. And the hotel they'd picked was full, or nearly full. There'd just been one room. 

Richie's not sure who suggested it the next time, but it became a habit after that. If they were on a hard case, something that left them shaken, they'd both stay in one of their rooms that night. Some kind of reassurance. It was the stuff they used to do as kids, whenever they slept over without the others, or when Eddie was hiding out from his mom, or on the occasion when Richie climbed up into his window like some kid from a shitty coming of age movie. That kind of habit. And they don't really talk about it, but they do it when they get jittery or stressed or just don't want to be alone. 

Richie really doesn't want to be alone tonight. And it feels fitting to be doing this tonight, the night that they're back fucking home. Full regression, right? That's the way to do it. If he gets really sad and moony, he can pull out Eddie's old postcard and relive the mopey fall of 1989 all over 

He checks his phone again while he's waiting for Eddie to come back. He sends a couple messages into the group chat, because it feels weird that he hasn't replied— _ guess what??!? this town is as much of a shithole as ever! :P  _ He checks messages from Stan, who usually responds quickly, but there's nothing there. Maybe he's already in Argentina. 

Eddie slips in the room after a little while and climbs into bed beside Richie. Richie thinks of a crack he could make about married couples and bites his lower lip before he can make it; bad fucking road to go down, Tozier. He's thirteen and he still wants to hide. So instead he says, "Hey, Eds. You got any of that yellow tape for the bed? You know— _ do not cross, under pain of death! _ "

"Yeah, so you don't kick me all night with your giant fucking feet. Is that your Robot Voice?"

"Affirmative _ , _ " Richie says, mechanically. "You always said it was my best."

"It is." Eddie's voice goes soft all over again. The mattress shifts between them as he lies down. Richie looks at the television until Eddie says, "Rich?" And then he looks at Eddie. 

He can't really see Eddie's face in the dark, but it's clear he's looking back at him. "Thanks," he says quietly. "I… didn't want to be alone tonight."

Richie swallows hard, shifting to lie down, too. "Yeah, of course," he says, maybe too loud. "I didn't want to be alone either."

The room is too dark around them. The air conditioning is making an unsettling hum—cementing Richie's status as fully reverted kid—and the bathroom is even darker than the rest of the room where it's lit by the TV, a pitch black cavern that makes Richie wish he'd closed the door. He isn't sure he'll be able to sleep. But he's glad for the reassuring weight of Eddie beside him. They used to push together their sleeping bags when they camped and were spooked by the ghost stories, flashlight wedged between them, reliably within reach. 

\---

Richie isn't sure how well he sleeps. He drifts in and out of nightmares he doesn't really remember, jolts awake at random sounds. By two a.m., he feels like he hasn't slept at all. Even having Eddie there doesn't feel as reassuring as it usually does. It helps—Richie isn't sure how he would feel if he was alone—but it's not as reassuring as it usually is. 

Sometime after two, Richie gets up to piss. He finds the note then; he's walking past the door and steps on something, and he thinks it's like the room service menu or something, but when he leans over to pick it up, it's a folded piece of notebook paper. 

Eddie wakes up when Richie turns on the light to read it. "Wha—what's goin' on?" he asks groggily. "Did something happen? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. No worries, Eds." Richie is unfolding the note, eyes glued to the page. "Someone left an informant note for us."

Eddie wakes up at that, sitting up straight in bed. " _ Really _ ?" 

They don't usually meet with informants—that's Bill and Mike's job, and their informants are unreliable as shit. They definitely do their own thing. There have been times when Richie and Eddie have called and asked them if they could get in touch with an informant for info on a case, and have gotten nothing. So this is the first time—at least that Richie can remember—where an informant has contacted  _ them _ . 

"What does it say?" Eddie reaches for the note, and Richie hands it over. It isn't long. It says,  _ I have information you might want. I am a friend. Meet me on the Kissing Bridge at 5 a.m. if you're interested.  _

"What the hell do they mean,  _ information _ ? Who is this?" Eddie hands the note back, his forehead furrowed confusedly. 

"I don't know, but the handwriting looks familiar." Richie grabs the folder with the bundle of information Mike and Ben gave them and starts digging through it. "We have to go, right? I mean, this could be important."

"I don't know," says Eddie, uncertainly. "What if it's a trap?"

"That's why there's two of us, Eduardo… A-ha!" Richie pulls out, triumphantly, the note that came with the articles left for Bill. He holds it up next to their note and says pointedly, "Same handwriting. See?"

Eddie's eyes widen as he looks down at the notes. "So it was left by the same person who told Bill to come to Derry," he says quietly. 

"I can't believe it. We've finally heard from the famous Blow Job Ron!" Richie gathers the notes together and shoots a picture of their note for the others. 

"I don't think this is Blow J— _ Deep Throat.  _ I don't think this is Deep Throat, Rich. Why would he meet with us instead of them? And didn't Mike say he doesn't usually leave notes?"

"Same handwriting. Who else would it be, right?" Richie stabs the words with one finger. "So we're going, right? We  _ have _ to go."

So they find themselves at the Kissing Bridge at 5 a.m. A bit of a creepy place for a meet-up—bit of a creepy setup in general. The sky isn't light yet, and the woods are choked with fog. They park a little ways from the bridge and walk down, flashlights in hand, guns on their hips, nervousness coating them both like the fog. "I have a bad feeling about this," Eddie grumbles as they walk down to the bridge, feet crunching in the dirt and gravel. 

"You have a bad feeling about everything," Richie says. "Come on, be positive! We might get some answers. We'll get to meet the famous Deep Throat and ask him why he picked that stupid fucking name." 

Eddie's eyes are glued to the bridge when he speaks again. He says, "I don't think this is Deep Throat, Richie."

"Why do you say that?" Richie turns to follow Eddie's line of sight and sees the figure in the distance, approaching them. The figure slowly growing visible as they approach. As they get closer, it's clear that the figure is a woman. Bright red hair and dark clothes, a black hoodie with the hood drawn up. Richie can't explain it, but there's something strangely familiar about her. And she's looking at them like she knows them. 

"Hi, Richie," she says, smiling a little. "Hi, Eddie."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had to include the one bed thing somehow -- that's an x files staple lol. i kind of cheated in that i figured the town house couldn't be overbooked if the other Losers were eventually gonna show up, but i did want to pay tribute. 
> 
> there's a good chance all of the law enforcement stuff is here completely inaccurate. i based most of this on stuff from txf, generally. but i do apologize for any inaccuracies. 
> 
> jerry bellwood, john feury, frederick cowan, laurie ann winterbarger, and dawn roy are all kids who are mentioned by mike in the book. if i'm correct, laurie ann is also the girl who disappears in the beginning of the miniseries (i referenced that in chapter 1 with the girl who vanished while her mother was hanging laundry). according to the book, jerry bellwood is one of the final deaths that inspires mike to call the others, and the one whose blood is used to write the "come home" message rather than adrian mellon. i changed the circumstances of death a little to match the first movie's motif of the kids just being missing, and to buy into the uncertainty about what happens to the kids for the losers. 
> 
> the memory richie and eddie have of going to the same museum every year in elementary school is inspired by my annual childhood trips to the local science center. i never knew why we kept going
> 
> the radio scene was probably a little cliche, but seemed to be the best way to gradually build; i planned to have some sort of sighting in the woods or something originally, but decided to go for more of a slow burn in the end
> 
> i've got this plotted out pretty well (i hope) and hope to keep a consistent posting schedule considering social distancing. here's hoping you all are okay in the wake of covid 19.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The memories returning feels like getting hit by a truck. He was totally fucking useless out on that bridge, stuck in the marvel and disbelief of it: there was a seventh Loser. A seventh friend that they'd fucking forgotten about all this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter switches perspective a little at the beginning, although not for very long. i wanted a chance to get into bev's head in this au. i'm gonna keep most of the fic in richie and eddie's perspective but i might switch a little like this when it comes to memories and backstory in the future. 
> 
> warning up front for references to child abuse (largely in the range of bev's dad and eddie's mom), discussion of control/abduction by the government and minds being messed with, some internalized homophobia, and discussion of child disappearances and deaths (within the context of the book and the movie), as well as some elements of horror.

Bev doesn't remember all of it. She doesn't think any of them remember all of it. They've fucked with her memory so much that she doesn't think she could remember her whole life if she tried. She doesn't remember all of that summer—based on everything Ben told her years ago, she thinks all of the Losers have forgotten the same things. What they were looking for, what happened to them. Why the suited men were after them. And of course, her friends all forgot her. 

But she didn't forget them. She's remembered her friends, all these years, and has held onto that as much as she could. And she remembers a little bit about the end of it all, the end of that summer—what happened when she left Derry. 

Between meeting everybody for the first time—the pharmacy, the quarry, the bathroom, the rock fight—everything is muddled. She gets bits and pieces, feelings, but not everything. The first clear thing after that is still foggy, but decipherable, and not exactly a happy memory. But it's stuck with Bev all these years. 

The memory is this: she and all the other Losers sitting slumped together against a wall in some generic looking room. Gray walls. Gray carpet. They were sitting all together like they were scared—Bev remembers being scared. She sat between Mike and Bill, her head on Bill's shoulder. Bill was sniffling like he'd been crying, holding onto something bright yellow. They were all tensed, all afraid, all covered in mud and damp with water. Their eyes were on the door. 

Eventually, the door opened, abruptly enough to startle them, and one of the suited men stepped in, looming over them—they were all so fucking tall. The others all looked at Bill, like they were expecting him to jump up and lead them, but he kept sitting down beside them, clutching at what he held in his arms. Like he was as scared as they all were. Bev remembers steeling herself up, the way she did when her dad got angry, straightening her spine and tensing all over. Getting ready. But she thinks it really was a shock when the man called her name. Like she hadn't been expecting them to come for just her. 

What happened was this: the man looked down at them with boredom and said, "Beverly Marsh?" He figured out who Bev was quickly, and before any of them could move, he was leaning over and grabbing her by the arm. "You'll need to come with me."

Bev was too stunned to fight as he pulled her to her feet. Maybe a lasting effect of her fucking father; maybe just shock. She remembered the feeling of shivering, like she was cold. The others reacted faster, on their feet in seconds, shouting at the tops of their lungs. It all blurred together, but she thinks Bill demanded to know where they were taking her, and Ben screamed at them to let her go. She thinks Mike and Richie tried to pry his hands off of her arms, and that Eddie tried to yank her back over to them. They all jumped at the man, tried to push him away, followed them to the door. Eventually something slid into place in Bev's brain and she started fighting back, kicking and screaming and struggling. They were all shouting and pushing and pulling and punching, but it didn't do any good. The suited man didn't even seem phased. He shoved her friends away like they were flies, yanked her out of the room, and locked the door behind them. 

Bev kept fighting, the whole way down the hall, but she kept looking back at the room behind her. She could hear her friends shouting her name, their hands pounding at the door. She thinks Ben kept shouting for them to bring her back. But they never did. And she couldn't get away, not then. 

After that, it got fuzzy. Too fuzzy. She couldn't remember much of anything after that. Not until sometime after she turned fifteen. 

She's pieced together a little of it: they pretended to be CPS. Said they were stepping in to take her away from her shitty fucking father. As if they were any better. If they'd had any fucking idea of what would've been best for her—if they _cared_ —they would've taken her to her aunt's. Her mom's sister, the one her dad didn't let her see. But they didn't care. They kidnapped her. Government men, so it all seemed legal. Took her away from Derry and her friends so they could… study her. Or something. It's been twenty-seven years and Bev still isn't sure. She doesn't really remember. 

She ran away when she was fifteen. She doesn't remember how; she jumped out a window, climbed over a fence, hid in a passing car. Some shit like that. She got out and she ran and they didn't find her. She shoplifted food from a drugstore, along with a box of hair dye and a pocket knife. She dyed her hair black in a public restroom with the door locked, thinking only of how noticeable red hair was, trying not to think of _January embers_. Then she chopped it short, sloppily, with the pocket knife. As short as it had been that summer. It had gotten long since, wherever she'd been, and she hated it. She cut it as short as it would go and didn't hear her father's voice once. 

She crossed the country again. She hitchhiked, and stowed away on buses, and it was probably a miracle she didn't get murdered, but she didn't know what else to do. She had to get away, as far away as possible, so they couldn't find her. And she wanted to go home. Not to her father—she never wanted to see him again—but to her friends. To her friends and her hometown—Derry was awful, but it was all she knew. Where else could she have gone to? Her friends cared about her, her friends tried to save her, and she wanted to see them again. 

It took almost a month to get back to Derry, but Bev finally got back. It was summer when she made it back, two years since she had left. She'd been running for so long that it was a relief just to be _back_ there, back somewhere where she was with people she cared about and who cared about her. It was so overwhelming that she started to cry one night, wedged in next to the Paul Bunyan statue, too scared to try going anywhere else. Silly as it sounded—she'd come all this way for them—she was nervous to seek out her friends. And there didn't seem to be anywhere else she _could_ go. 

On her third day in town, Bev went searching for the other Losers. She checked all their old places—the Barrens, the quarry, the clubhouse, where she started sleeping after a couple days. She figured out pretty quickly that Eddie and Ben had moved. Rotating between their normal haunts, she finally found one of her old friends, but not together. It was just Bill, sitting under a tree out at the Standpipe, bike leaning up against the tree, whittling a stick with a pocket knife. He looked different—not taller, but maybe ganglier, hair grown out, tanner—but it was still _Bill,_ and Bev still stumbled to a shocked stop when she saw him, emotion choking her throat. She thought that they used to meet out at the Standpipe that summer, just them. She wasn't sure if she still had the crush on him that she'd had then—she couldn't be sure—but she was happy to see him, and she considered for a wild second running up and throwing her arms around him. 

She didn't do that, but she did straighten up and call, "Bill!" before walking in a hurry towards him. She could still remember the scene in the room where she'd been taken, how much they'd all fought to keep her there; she was expecting Bill to be relieved, to be happy to see her. It was silly, but she was expecting Bill to run up and hug _her,_ to be glad that she was all right. It took everything she had not to break into an all-out run. 

But that wasn't what happened. Instead, Bill stood up and blinked at her in confusion, standing awkwardly where he was, shielding his eyes from the sun. He didn't come towards her or call her name. He didn't even seem to recognize her. 

Deflated and trying to hide it, Bev slowed to a walk as she came closer to him. She kept examining Bill's face and finding no recognition; she thought, for a moment, that it might be the hair, and tugged on a pitch-black strand hanging over her forehead self-consciously. "I know," she said, trying to laugh it off. "It's dramatic. But I was… trying to be sure they couldn't find me, and black is pretty different from red…" 

"I'm s-sorry," Bill said, politely. Too politely. His voice had gotten deeper in the missing years. "Do I kn-know you?"

Bev inhaled sharply and tried to hide it, rubbing a hand over her face. Her first thought was that maybe she imagined it, the whole thing: the parts she remembered about that summer, having friends, all of them being there in that room with her. Maybe it had just been her that whole time. Her second thought, her heart thudding in her chest, was, _What did they do?_

"It's… me," she said gingerly. "Bev. Beverly Marsh."

Recognition came into Bill's eyes then, but it wasn't recognition from that summer. It was the way he'd kind of looked at her before they all started hanging out. Polite smiles and "Hello"s. "Oh, h-hi," he said, smiling slightly. "I didn't know you w-were still… I mean, I thought you moved in with your aunt a couple years ago. Are you b-b-back for a visit?"

Maybe Bev should've brought up the summer of 1989. Considering how suspicious she knows they got over time, considering the lost memories, maybe he would've believed her if she'd just said 1989. But she hadn't thought of it then. She just said, quietly, "Yeah. Yeah, back for a visit," and thought about her own fuzzy memories. She'd spent the trip back to Maine trying to piece together the past few years and only got scraps. That scene in the room, her father getting worse, her friends… the few things she did remember from that summer were the good memories. The time she spent with the other Losers. She remembered the fact that they were looking for something, but she didn't remember _what_. Which made her think they must've found it. If they took that memory away from her, they must have taken it from the others, too. But maybe they'd done more; maybe they'd made it so that her friends wouldn't remember any of it, including her. 

Bev didn't know why they'd do that, and she couldn't dissect that, not right now with Bill standing in front of her, asking polite questions about her aunt's house and high school and the third grade play. Bev just kind of smiled and nodded, unsure of what to do now. She wondered if there was anything to indicate what she'd been through, whatever it was; she didn't really remember, but she knew it was something. Didn't she have scars? Didn't she look a little worse? She wanted to tell Bill that the suited men had taken her and had done something to all of them, but she didn't know _what_ they'd done, and she had to hide, because they'd come again. She didn't say anything, though. 

The last straw was when the others showed up. Not all of them, cause Eddie and Ben were gone, but Stan, Mike, and Richie, walking up to meet Bill. It was clear from their faces that they didn't remember her, either. Bill had to introduce her. Bev couldn't stand it anymore. She said something to the others, she wasn't sure what, and she got the hell out of there. 

She slept in the clubhouse two more nights, a little worried that the others would find her there, but they never came. If anything, the clubhouse confirmed that her memories weren't false, because she kept finding things that she remembered from that summer. Old pictures. Stan's shower caps. Rocks she and Ben had collected down in the creek. Stuff like that. Her memories were right, and that summer had happened. And the suited men had erased it. Erased her in the minds of her friends, but didn't bother to do that to her. They took it all away. 

She slept in the clubhouse for two more nights, and then she left Derry, for what she thought would be forever. There didn't seem to be a reason to stay. 

\---

In the years since her return to Derry, Bev has spent a lot of time piecing it all together. Not what happened that summer, but what happened since. Whatever happened that summer, the suited men didn't want them to remember it. They'd taken Bev and erased her memory of that summer, leaving only enough scraps to piece together the Loser's Club and that they'd been looking for something and that she'd been taken away. They'd taken the others and erased the same thing, except they erased Bev, too—Bev assumes so they wouldn't go looking for her when they took her. And they'd interfered with Eddie completely for some reason, talked his mom into moving him away, and erased all his memories of Derry. Bev still isn't sure why. Maybe it's what they intended to do for all of them, but Mrs. Kaspbrak was the only one who would cooperate. The only other Loser who left permanently was Ben, and Bev's digging made it clear that it hadn't been because the suited men told Mrs. Hanscom to. Mrs. Kaspbrak seemed to be the only ones who'd let the suited men anywhere near her kid, and so maybe that was the only kid they'd managed to take everything from. 

Bev had actually found Eddie the following year, in upstate New York. It was purposeful—she'd wanted to see what Eddie remembered, thinking that maybe since they took him away when they'd taken her, they'd let him keep more of it. They were sixteen when she found him, at a playground near his house. It was clear pretty quickly that Eddie didn't recognize her, so Bev didn't press. She pretended to just be somebody in the area. They actually managed to befriend each other all over again, engaging in rapid, excitable conversations sitting on the swings. Eddie struck Bev as a little lonely—maybe he had some sort of muscle memory that recognized her, she didn't know. He didn't remember Derry or the others, or her, but they were friends, and for a couple weeks, they met up at that park every day. It had been so relieving to have a friend again, to have someone to _talk_ to, that Bev had considered staying in Eddie's town for a while. Settling down, hiding out there. She didn't have much better to do, somewhere else to go. 

They found her there. Of course they found her there. They didn't catch her, but they found her. Bev kept seeing suited men lingering around when she'd meet up with Eddie, people watching her. She panicked. She told Eddie pieces of the truth—that people were following her, that she was in trouble. She didn't tell him that he was in trouble, too. She should've just run. She hadn't run, though, and she had spent three nights sleeping on Eddie's floor with a sleeping bag before they found her. Mrs. Kaspbrak found her first, and called them, and they came. Bev should've anticipated that; Eddie's mom had always hated her. 

They hadn't caught her. She climbed out of Eddie's window in one frenzied moment, and ran, and they hadn't caught her. She saw them coming in the door while she snuck around the back. She tried to talk Eddie into coming with her. "You don't know what they'll do to you," she said. "You'll be safer with me." For a moment, she had visions of them going back to Derry, finding the others, telling them what happened, taking down the suited men together. 

But Eddie had just shaken his head fearfully and said, "I can't. I can't go," and she knew he was thinking of his mom. He didn't remember everything yet, she knew that—but as she climbed down the drain pipe, she thought she saw a flash of recognition in Eddie's eyes. Like he remembered her, just a little. 

If he remembered, even briefly, it was all gone by the next day. That was what the suited men did. Bev was sure of that. They didn't get her then, although they'd find her again when she was in her early thirties. Incidentally, this was the next time she saw any of the Losers again—when she was running from the suited men, she found Ben. Maybe that was where all of that started, the day she'd found Ben. 

Bev had known for years that she was the only one to remember the whole of the situation. They remembered each other but not her—even Eddie got to remember the rest of them eventually. They knew something happened that summer; they just didn't know she'd ever been a part of it. Bev remembered the most out of all of them, and even that wasn't everything. She was still looking for answers, just like them. Even if they were looking in different places. 

Maybe she had orchestrated this a little. The more information she managed to gather on the others—she kept track over the years, of course she did—the clearer it was that the others were looking for the same thing she was. She figured they'd come back if this ever started up in Derry again—especially Richie and Eddie, the FBI agents who investigated unexplained phenomena. That was everything that Derry was. (Bev never would've picked that career for them herself, but she thought it fit well, especially after reading some articles about their cases.) So she kept track of Derry herself, waiting for people to start disappearing again. She sent the articles to Bill, sure he would convince the others to go—Bill was still the leader all these years later—and planned to meet them there. She figured if there was any place to tell them who she was, and what she remembered, it was Derry. Derry is where they'd all found each other, where they'd created the bond Bev held onto all these years. Derry held all the answers they'd all spent their whole lives looking for. Derry is where the truth is. 

\---

"You guys don't remember me," the woman on the bridge says. It's not a question; there's a degree of acceptance in her voice. 

Eddie's initial instinct is to say, _No_ , but looking at her, he finds he's unable to. There's something weirdly familiar about her that he can't explain. 

Beside him, Richie says, "I'm assuming you're not informant Deep Throat, are you?" 

The woman looks taken aback, but not unamused. "No," she says. "I'm—I'm Beverly Marsh." She says it a little hesitantly, like she's nervous to tell them this. 

Recognition flickers in Richie's eyes and he elbows Eddie. "You're Ben's imag—I mean, you know our friend Ben, don't you?" he says, glossing over his _imaginary girlfriend_ slip. "Ben Hanscom? Hot architect in Nebraska about five or six years ago?"

"Yeah, I know Ben," Beverly says quietly. "Although I haven't talked to him in years."

Richie looks around the bridge like he's expecting someone else, for Ben to pop out of the shadows or for the suited men to descend upon them. "So you're an informant now?" he says, maybe a little suspiciously. "What information do you have for us? What… what don't we remember?" 

"I wanted to see how much you guys remembered," Beverly says. "I didn't think it was a lot, but… I'm from Derry, too. I knew you guys a long time ago."

"Really?" Richie turns to Eddie, saying, "Eds, do you remember—" He cuts off abruptly, eyes wide, and says again, "Eds?" 

Eddie is distracted. He's thinking about the quarry, earlier, how he reached for a detail and his brain just sort of skipped over it. It was missing. He couldn't remember who jumped first that summer. He thinks he might remember now; he remembers standing clustered at the edge of the drop with the guys, someone coming up behind them, pushing through at a run and leaping over the edge. Someone with red hair. He remembers a bathroom coated with blood—blood, like the dream Richie told him about—and a girl standing in the middle, explaining what happened. Something like a spike whirring through the air, in her hands. He remembers later, in New York, when he was about sixteen, meeting a girl at the playground who talked to him like they were old friends. The girl who told him he should be a doctor. 

"Bev," he says, almost unconsciously. Beverly Marsh. She went to school with them. Bill and Ben had crushes on her. She—she hung out with them, that summer. He goes over the memories he has of that summer, and they are fuzzy, his head aches as he tries to remember, but it's there. _They're_ all there, but it's not six of them. It's seven. Because Bev is there, too. In all of the memories, Bev is there, too.

In front of them, Bev smiles, genuinely, and with relief. "I wasn't sure how long it would take you to remember," she says. "I was worried it would take longer."

"Eds?" Richie's hand is still on his arm, he's still staring at him with confusion. "What's…"

"She's a Loser, Rich," Eddie says, maybe more sure of his memories than he's ever been. "Are you remembering? Lucky Seven? The girl we were talking about in your dream? She jumped first at the quarry, remember?"

Richie's forehead wrinkles as realization slowly comes over his face. Recognition in his eyes. He staggers in place a little and says faintly, "Shit. Holy _fuck_."

"You got it?" Eddie asks. 

Richie nods absently. "Yeah, I got it. I think I got it. Fuck. Jesus. Hi, Bev. Long time no see."

Bev grins, and in an instant, she's that thirteen-year-old again. "You dreamin' about me, Richie?"

"Only nightmares," Richie says weakly. He bends nearly in half, hands on his knees, letting out his breath in a whoosh. " _Fuck_ ," he says through clenched teeth. Eddie can empathize; he's not doing much better. "It's all so foggy… Am I missing something? How the hell did this happen?"

"It's a long story," Bev says. "We should probably talk somewhere more private. Do you guys have your phones?"

"Our regular ones are at the hotel," says Eddie, shaking his head hard like he can ward off a headache. "Burner that Mike gave us is in the car. I—do you remember Mike?" 

"Yeah," Bev says with a small smile. She turns towards the woods. "Follow me. I know where we won't be heard."

She takes them to the clubhouse. If they were unsure of Bev's legitimacy before, it's confirmed when she finds the clubhouse. (Albeit, it's because her foot goes through the door, but Eddie can safely say he couldn't have done any better. It's all covered over now, with grass and dirt.) They climb down into the clubhouse that Ben made for them, and Richie and Eddie turn on their flashlights while Bev pulls down the trapdoor. And then she tells them everything. 

The memories become clearer as Bev talks, sharpening in Eddie's mind. He starts to understand what's happened. He doesn't remember that scene in the gray room Bev describes, where the suited men took her away, but he remembers almost everything else. Bev being with them that summer, Bev searching for things with them. He can tell Richie is remembering, too; he stiffens with recognition when Bev describes coming back to Derry two years later. "You were there with Bill at the Standpipe," he says. "Two years later. None of us recognized you… Shit, Bev, why didn't you say anything? We were all already suspicious, we talked about it constantly… we would've believed you. Well, maybe not Stan, but the rest of us…"

Bev smiles a little amusedly. "I was scared, Rich. I didn't know how much you'd remember—for all I knew then, you didn't remember any of it."

Eddie is stuck on something else, a memory he keeps returning to. A little numbly, he says, "You came to New York."

Richie looks at him with astonishment. Bev says, "Yeah. I… figured they took that, too."

"My… my mom called the suited men," says Eddie, a wave of sudden rage rising up. He tries to avoid thinking about his mom when he can now, but she's always lingering under the surface a bit and now _this_ —he can't remember the last time he was really angry with her like this. "You had to run. You asked me to come with you."

Bev's face shifts, getting a little sadder. "I was worried about what they would do," she says. "I shouldn't have left you there… I shouldn't have stayed in the first place, but I was scared…"

"I should've gone with you," Eddie says faintly. He remembers it a little now: the suited men barging in, demanding to know where Bev was. Grabbing him and yanking him from the room despite his mother's hysterical wails, probably regretting calling them in the first place… "Jesus Christ, Bev," he says roughly, "I'm so sorry."

Bev shakes her head. "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't… I'm sorry, too."

"Me too," Richie says, loudly and a little awkwardly, like he's trying to cut off their conversation, but Eddie just has to look at him to know that he means it. He's looking at Bev with naked sympathy on his face, and he knows Richie is apologizing for forgetting her, for not recognizing her in Derry when they were fifteen. "I'm sorry, too." Bev grins and he adds, a little jokingly, "Now that we're all sorry… Bev, you went to New York after Derry, right? And they caught up to you there, the suited men?"

"Yeah," she says. "I wanted to see what Eddie remembered, and we started hanging out. Mrs. Kaspbrak caught me there and called them. I guess they wanted to stay in touch to… monitor Eddie." She says that last part apologetically. Eddie shudders all over at that and then feels a little guilty, remembering that the suited men kidnapped Bev and kept her and did God-knows-what for two years before she escaped. 

Richie's grimacing, too, and he says gingerly, "Where'd you go after that? What happened then?"

"I found my aunt," says Bev. "She lives near Portland, Maine, she had a house out in the woods… it took some convincing, but she believed me about the suited men and what they'd done. She petitioned to adopt me when she heard the news about, uh… 'Social Services' taking me away. She thought it was strange that they wouldn't even consider her." She sighs, and shrugs. "I was able to lay low at my aunt's for a long time after that. On into my twenties. She lived pretty far away and I didn't leave a lot… or maybe they never came looking. Maybe they figured I was going to stop poking around. I started taking classes online, started feeling more normal… Moved out eventually and got a job… Started living as Beverly Marsh again. They probably would've left me alone if I hadn't started digging again."

"What made you want to get involved in this again?" Eddie asks. He knows the only reason he got involved again is because he found the others again. They helped him remember what he had lost, what was at stake—the truth about Bill's brother, the truth about what happened to them, what had taken him away from his friends and sent his life on an alternate spiral. But he thinks if he had found this on his own, or if he had experienced one ounce of what Beverly has gone through, he wouldn't want to touch this with a two-foot pole. It's too much, it's too dangerous, and she would've had to do it all alone. 

"Same as you guys, I guess," says Bev. "I wanted to know the truth. I wanted to expose whatever they were trying to cover up, whatever they ruined our lives to cover up. I wanted to help you guys, too, if I could. I didn't know what they'd done to you or how much they'd taken away… I thought you deserved to remember, too."

"Aww, thank you, Bevvie." Richie claps a solemn hand over his heart. "I'm _touched._ "

Eddie rolls his eyes. Bev grins a little and says, "I started pulling research, trying to hack into records. Stuff from Derry, stuff from the government… similar cases that got covered up like this, unexplainable disappearances or deaths…"

"X-Files," Richie supplies. 

"Right. I found some of those, too. It was before you'd reopened them. I started gathering information, writing down my own memories… I intended to blow the whistle if I could, expose what they did to us and those other kids. But they found out." Her mouth flattens into a grim line. "They must've been watching me."

Richie's jaw tightens and Eddie shutters again. They've discussed surveillance a lot—he's seen Ben and Mike fucking with security cameras, their phone lines, their computers—but the idea still creeps him out. "What'd you do?" he says quietly. 

"I ran. Not for the border, like I should have done, but further into America. They chased me. We did this ridiculous fucking cat and mouse game for a while… That's when I ran into Ben." Her face softens a little there. "He helped me. I guess you guys already know that story."

"We do," says Richie. "And not to be weird, Bev, but I gotta know… did you tell him who you were? I mean, that you knew him?"

Bev winces and shakes her head. "No. He doesn't know. I didn't like lying to him, but I… _Fuck_. I didn't know if he'd believe me if I told him. And after what happened with me and Eddie when I was a kid, I was scared. I knew just being near him would put him in danger, but I didn't want to make it worse. He wasn't involved; he was out of this, like Stan was. I thought maybe if he thought I was just hiding from somebody normal, they'd leave him alone."

"You told him part of the truth, though," Richie says, not unkindly. "You told him that the suited men were government men. You inspired him to come find us—thanks for that, by the way. He's a good roommate, even if his monster dog—"

"I felt guilty," she says. "I wanted to tell him the truth. And honestly… I was a little glad you guys got together after that. I was worried about who all would actually show up when the time was right… when all this stuff started up again, and we had to come back to find answers." Bev shifts uncomfortably in place. "The others are coming, right? Eventually?"

"Shouldn't you know," Richie says dryly, "Stalky Stalkerson?"

"Beep beep, Richie," Eddie says impatiently. "She wasn't _stalking…_ Yeah, Bill, Ben, and Mike are driving up. They'll get here today." Bev nods, looking a little relieved. Eddie adds, tentatively, "Bev? Do you mind if I ask… how did you know we'd come back when this started again?"

"Well, I knew you were looking into this stuff," Bev says. "So I figured. But I didn't know for sure. I… guess I just hoped." She looks a little embarrassed, but she adds, "I wanted to see you guys again."

"Fuck, Bev," Richie says, "we wanted to see you, too. I mean, we didn't _know_ , but…" 

Eddie elbows him. Bev says, "Yeah. I know what you mean," and smiles, just a little. 

"Fuck," Richie says again. "All this time and we didn't…" He steps forward suddenly, engulfing Bev in a hug, which she immediately returns. "You know I didn't mean it when I called you a stalker, right?" he adds, voice thick. 

Bev laughs, hugging him tightly. "Yeah, Trashmouth. I know."

Eddie's throat is thick with emotion. He goes to join them, slipping his arms around Bev, and Richie immediately pulls him into the embrace. It feels like it's a long time coming. "I'm sorry," he says again, into Bev's shoulder, because it seems like the right thing to say. 

Bev doesn't correct him this time. She just hugs him back. 

\---

It's already daylight when they slip out of the clubhouse and start the long trek back to the car. Bev comes with them, despite her initial misgivings; they convince her to come back to the hotel instead of staying in the clubhouse. "We can't leave you in a fucking hole in the ground, Marsh," says Richie. "And hey! We have to call the others, tell them about this! They're gonna be over the moon, Bevvers, just you wait."

They drive back to the hotel quickly, although Bev insists on huddling in the back. "Not to sound too Knights in Shining Armor bullshit," Richie says, doing his best to not sound condescending and probably failing, "but you're safe with us, Bev. We _are_ trained professionals, y'know." He elbows Eddie in the driver's seat. "Right, Eds?"

Eddie shoots him a look but says, "Uh, yeah. We have guns."

Bev smiles, maybe a little thinly. "Thank you guys, although I'm not sure how much use it is. They're probably already here and already watching us." 

Eddie tightens his jaw like he's trying not to shudder. Richie self-consciously, and maybe habitually, flips down his rearview mirror to check behind them. Nothing. The road is clear, as clear as it always was when they were kids. The Kissing Bridge is pretty fucking remote; he guesses that's why lovesick kids come and carve their initials in—

Richie's breath draws in sharply, his neck warming abruptly, and he yanks his eyes away from the bridge. He's suddenly thirteen again, dusty grit hard under his knees, pocket knife bearing a callus in his hands as he carved out the shaky letters. _R + E._ He'd forgotten that he did it, until just now. He can't believe he _forgot._

He's blushing like a kid and he can't look at Eddie, thrust back into gawky teenage fear, throwing around jokes about girls and ducking Bowers's taunts and yanking away after he got self-conscious, realized he'd been touching someone or leaning on them too long. He's back in his hotel bed, curled up delicately, trying not to cross the line in the middle. He shakes his head hard and tries not to think about it as they drive away. 

Back at the Town House, Richie texts the others. One of the only significant things he's said in the group chat since they left, and it's just, _WE NEED TO TALK!!! video call. asap. not kidding._ "You're going to freak them out," says Eddie when he sees that. 

"So what? We were a little freaked when we got that note. No offense, Bev."

Bev shrugs and tries to grin. "None taken." 

She's clearly rattled—nervous, if Richie had to guess, about seeing the others. He can't blame her, even though he's sure she has nothing to worry about; he was nervous as shit too before meeting Ben again, and sitting down in that dinky little office waiting for Dr. Kaspbrak, he almost threw up. He feels like he should tell her that, so he reaches out and kinda awkwardly pats her shoulder and says, "Hey, you… know you have nothing to worry about, right? I mean, I remember now… Ben and Bill and Mike all loved you. As soon as they remember, they're gonna be real fucking happy that they did." 

The more Richie thinks on it—combs through the new or revised memories pushing at the edge of his skull; it's a weird-ass feeling—the more he remembers Bill and Ben in their childhood crushes, stumbling over their words around Bev (well, for Bill, more than usual) and gazing at her with big moony eyes. It was fucking annoying. And Mike didn't seem to have a crush, but he and Bev'd had a bond, maybe from being two of three newcomers, maybe because Bev was the one to hurl that first rock—who knew? But they'd loved her, as easily as they loved any of the others. He's sure they won't respond badly. Stan, either; he'd had a bond with Bev, too. They used to go birdwatching together. 

Bev grins, a little more authentically. "Thanks, Rich. I'm sure it'll be fine." She shifts awkwardly from her perch on the bed, shrugging off her hoodie and clearing her throat. "I've been meaning to ask actually… is Stan coming? You-you haven't mentioned him yet, is he driving up with the others?"

Eddie and Richie exchange an awkward look. "Stan's still… we're still close," Eddie explains, "but we… He and his wife live in Georgia. You might've known that already… He doesn't want to be involved in this. It scares him."

"I've been saying that we should tell him about all this," Richie adds. "I've been _meaning_ to… Shit, I need to text, see if he remembers Bev. I'll do that after we touch base with the others." He keeps chickening out and he needs to knock it the fuck off, especially with this; he can't let Stan forget _Bev_. 

"Richie, your phone," says Eddie, tossing it to him. It's buzzing with a video call notification from Bill. 

Bev breathes in abruptly and moves to the other side of the room, out of sight. (They kind of agreed in the car that it'd be better to clear things up before springing the Bev of it all on them.) Richie makes a face that is supposed to be reassuring and scoots over to make room for Eddie, propping his phone up on the clock before hitting answer. "Hey, Losers!" he says in such a false cheery voice that Eddie immediately pokes him in the side. 

"Richie, w-what's going on?" Bill demands, voice steep with worry. He's crowded with Ben and Mike around what Richie assumes is his laptop open in the trunk of Mike's shitty van; cars and asphalt are visible behind them. It looks like they literally pulled off the side of the road. "You said we needed to talk."

"I didn't mean pull to the side of the Interstate, you fucking nut!" says Richie. He rolls his eyes over at Bev, like they have inside jokes, like they haven't been separated by some psycho men in suits and a memory wipe. 

"You said _as soon as possible_ ," Mike says, calmer than Bill.

"What happened?" Ben asks from off to the left side, his voice crackling and half-drowned out by the drone of a passing truck. "Are you guys okay? Is anyone hurt?"

" _Yes,_ yes, it's not that dramatic, I promise," Eddie says, grabbing the phone and shifting it a little. "We just… we remembered something. Something big."

Something like elation spills over Bill's face, and Mike's, too. "What is it?" Bill says immediately, leaning in closer with excitement. "What'd you find?"

Richie and Eddie exchange a glance, unsure of how to proceed. Eddie takes a tentative breath and says, "Do you remember Beverly Marsh?"

They all take a minute to react, processing the information. Richie deliberately doesn't look at Bev, watching his friend's faces instead. They've got the furrowed forehead, and probably the burst-y brain feeling, that he had meeting Bev on the bridge. 

Mike's the first to speak, voice thick with confusion. "You mean… Ben's friend? The conspiracy theorist?" he asks, and looks at Ben as if for confirmation. 

Bill speaks almost at the same time: "N-n-no, she's… she was at Derry Elementary with us, right? In the third grade play?" And Richie has to stifle a surprised snort, remembering little baby Bev and Bill sharing an awkward, chaste kiss in the third grade play. Childhood romance shit. 

Ben doesn't say anything. He draws back out of the view of the camera a little, sucking in his breath like he's remembering. Richie wonders if it's hit him yet. 

"Yeah," Eddie says—to both of them, Richie assumes, cause they're both right. But he doesn't clarify. "But we… knew her a little better than that." 

He looks at Richie helplessly. Richie clears his throat, looks his friends right in the grainy video chat eyes, and says, "Lucky Seven." And hopes it'll click in place for them the way it did for him. 

He sees when it does. He can see their faces shifting, the memories setting in. Bill's eyes widen with astonishment as he stiffens in place; Mike covers his mouth, horrified. Richie looks over his shoulder at Bev, who is standing, looking over at the screen, a sort of nervous eagerness on her face. On the other side of Richie, Eddie smiles at her encouragingly. 

"Is she there?" Ben asks, his voice thick, coming back into the frame. He's got one hand on the side of the screen and is looking into the screen with a look that strikes Richie as almost painfully familiar. (It strikes him, suddenly, that this is the way Ben used to look at Bev when they were kids. He is thirteen all over again, the same way all of them are a little thirteen all the time. They never really grew up in a way. Peter fucking Pan.)

Bev comes over to their side of the bed and Eddie wordlessly passes her the phone. She swallows hard and smiles. "Hi, Ben," she says softly. "Hi, guys. It's good to see you."

"Bev," Bill says, his voice strangled, and Mike gasps out, "Oh my god." Richie can empathize; the memories returning feels like getting hit by a truck. He was totally fucking useless out on that bridge, stuck in the marvel and disbelief of it: there was a seventh Loser. A seventh friend that they'd fucking _forgotten_ about all this time. All that shit he said about not forgetting a person, and they had. All of them. It's staggering. 

He and Eddie slide off the bed, giving Bev space to reconnect with the others. 

\---

They talk for almost an hour, crowding around various screens, filling people in. Bev tells Bill, Mike, and Ben her story and they gradually remember the details. They all cry a little, stricken with the emotions of remembering and realizing they forgot and all that shit. And it just keeps striking Richie how wrong it is that Stan isn't here, isn't a part of this. That the Loser's Club is still incomplete even though they'd found Bev. The feeling gets so strong that he steps off to the side and calls Stan, determined to tell him everything right then and there if that's what it takes. 

The call goes to voicemail, so Richie leaves a message: "Hey, Stan-man. Sorry if I'm interrupting your sexy vacation, but… we really need to talk to you. We're back in Derry, Stan, and… I know you don't want to be involved but we found something. We _remembered_ something. You're gonna want to hear it. I promise."

The call ends with Ben and Mike and Bill all talking over each other, agreeing that they need to get to Derry as quick as possible. "We'll leave r-r-right now, we'll be there by tonight," says Bill. "We can figure out our next step from there."

So from there, Bev and Eddie and Richie are left in something of a limbo. Neither of them are sure if there's any point looking for Jerry Bellwood or any of the other kids, and they aren't sure about Bev leaving the hotel. The three of them realize that they're starving, suddenly, and decide to order lunch for the time being. Eddie calls in room service and they eat cross-legged on Richie's bed, talking idly and maybe a little awkwardly with Bev. Trying to fill in the missing years. 

The best subject to discuss—the safest, Richie guesses—is the cases they've worked on the X-Files. They have some funny stories—stories that alternately drive Eddie or Richie crazy, but that definitely make Bev laugh. That goes on for a little while, but eventually, the topic circles back to Derry. It always fucking does. 

"Hey, Bev," Richie says at one point, chewing his sandwich. "Big Bill thinks that aliens did all this. Abducted Georgie and the other kids… maybe abducted us… whaddya think of that?"

Bev shrugs, crumpling her chip bag. "It honestly correlates well with a lot of what I've found. Memory loss and government cover-ups are pretty consistent with alien abduction. I've exchanged similar stories with other abductees who have memory gaps. It fits."

"See, Eds?" Richie jabs him in the arm. "See?"

"Hey!" Eddie protests. "I've never said it wasn't aliens."

"Oh, really?" Richie pitches his voice higher for a bad imitation of Eddie the day before: " _It sounds fucking nuts, Rich_. You've protested this theory about a million times, don't play coy!" 

"I've never said that _wasn't_ the deal, either—I've seen the reports, I've seen the evidence, I've heard Bill's defense a million times in 1989 and now."

"He did think it was aliens then, didn't he?" says Bev thoughtfully. "It was one of his theories, I think. He kept talking about government agents and lights in the sky… I remember we talked about it a lot. He thought it might be a monster, too."

Eddie widens his eyes over the top of his water bottle, gulping as he lowers it. "Monster?"

"Yeah… we talked a lot about it being a monster. We all kind of had different ideas…" Bev, lost in thought, piles her trash on the bedside table. "Ben thought the town was haunted, I think. He told me that he saw ghosts or something. And Stan was creeped out by his dad's synagogue…" She trails off thoughtfully. 

Richie stares at her a little, surprised. "I don't remember any of that," he says with amazement. Oh, Bill is gonna love this. "Fuck, Bevvie," he adds, "I'm glad we found you. You've probably got all these memories that we _don't_ have… Together, we can paint a fuller picture."

"I hope so," Bev says, a little gratefully. "My memory has always been so fragmented, and I didn't have anyone to compare with… I've wanted to touch base with the rest of you, you know? Get a fuller picture, like you said… It's too bad Stan won't be here." She hesitates a little, chewing on her lower lip, and adds, "Have you… heard from Stan yet?"

Richie checks his phone real quick before saying, "No," unsurprised and nervous that he's unsurprised. "I bet he and Patty are in Argentina already." He sighs and looks over to Eddie habitually, noticing he hasn't said anything for a minute. He's typing something on his phone, staring at it with concern. "You okay, Eds?" Richie asks. "Our bosses flipping their shit?" Wouldn't be the first time. 

"Don't call me that," Eddie says absently. "And… no." He sets down his phone, looking up at Richie with solemn eyes. "Rich, Laurie Ann Winterbarger's mother wants to meet with us. She wants to tell us what happened."

\---

They go, because how could they not go? The only real issue is what to do about Bev. Both Richie and Eddie offer up their hotel rooms if she wants to stay, but she insists on going. "Safety in numbers, right?" she says. "And they probably already know I'm here."

There's an empty hour to kill before they meet Ms. Winterbarger in the park. They spend the hour driving around Derry, trying to pick up memories. They're setting up for the Canal Day Festival—all three of them remember that. Bev is able to recall some more things that they don't, mostly just fun, inconsequential memories; the only significant thing she recalls is a fight she claims Richie and Bill had, on the street outside the old Neibolt house. Eddie doesn't remember anything like that, and is kind of surprised by the memory; he can't imagine Bill and Richie fighting. They've always been close; they stayed together through college and into the FBI until Bill dropped out, they orchestrated this whole search practically. But Richie gets this weird look on his face when Bev says it. Eddie isn't sure if that means he remembers it or not. Bev says she doesn't remember the details—she just remembers Bill and Richie shouting at each other out in the street, and then Bill hauling off and punching Richie. "Must've really pissed him off," Richie says huskily. 

They get to the park before Ms. Winterbarger and mull around a little, walking around the grounds and noting places where they used to hang on. People are milling around in preparation for the festival; the high school marching band practicing onstage. Eddie has a faint memory of the seven of them sitting under the Paul Bunyan statue and swapping stories, but he can't remember what they said. "I used to love this park when I was a kid," Bev says at one point. "My mom and I used to walk down here when I was a little kid. We hung out here a lot that summer, I think. We'd go over to the arcade or get sodas from the drugstore and then come over here."

"It's cool," Richie says, shrugging. "Although the fucking Paul Bunyan statue has always freaked me the fuck out for some reason." He shudders, waving a hand at the looming statue. "Know what I mean?"

"Weirdly enough," says Eddie, "I do." He looks out over the grass, towards the playground on the other side of the stage. They used to sneak over to this part of the park to play hide and seek as little kids. There was at least a three month period when they were seven where Richie was constantly crawling under the stage during hide and seek, and then declared the underneath their fort. He started keeping his Legos and action figures under there until he lost half of them and his Luke Skywalker got permanently mud-stained. They were all hesitant to crawl under—Stanley was scared of spiders, and Eddie was scared of germs—but he remembers being relieved when they crawled under. It was a cool dark place out of the sight of his friends' moms, and it was _theirs_. Like an early version of the clubhouse. 

But he remembers the statue, too. Bill made up a story one time at a sleepover when they were six or seven, that Paul Bunyan would come alive and eat them, and Eddie had nightmares for three nights. He's pretty sure Richie did, too. 

"This whole town is creepy," Bev says with a shudder, and Richie and Eddie both nod immediately. They can all be in agreement about that. 

The three of them sit down on a bench near the statue, where they agreed to meet Laurie Ann's mom. Bev asks as they sit, "So who do we say I am? Because I'm definitely not FBI."

"It's called _lying,_ Ms. Marsh," says Richie, crossing his legs and making a face. Bev sticks her tongue out and he shrugs. "You'd make a good G-woman. Right, Eds?"

"We'll just say you're an associate," Eddie says. "She probably won't ask any questions about who we are, especially since she basically sought us out."

Richie nods. "We left a message that she easily could've ignored. She wants to talk to us."

Bev nods, pushing hair behind one ear. "Maybe she knows something we don't," she says quietly. "Maybe she's seen something."

Richie nods eagerly. Eddie shrugs and looks out over the lawn, not wanting to think about what Ms. Winterbarger might've seen. He can't put his finger on it, but something about this place creeps him out. Sends shivers up his spine. 

Bev and Richie are still talking, but Eddie zones out. He looks out over the lawn instead and watches the band practicing—they have different uniforms than when he was a kid, watches kids running around the park. A girl in a baseball cap with a birthmark on one cheek goes lunging in their direction after a Frisbee. Two guys walk by in front of them, hand in hand; one says something to the other that must be funny or scandalous or something like that, because the other guy shakes his head, laughs, and says, "Adrian!" 

Bev sucks in a sudden breath, startling Eddie. He turns towards her to see her looking after the couple with wide eyes. "He needs to get out of here," she says in a rush, grabbing Eddie's arm abruptly. 

Eddie looks back and forth between the men and Bev, a little dumbfounded as he watches the couple sit together on the grass. "What do you mean?"

"That guy, right over there, his name's Adrian," says Bev, sounding a little out of it. "He's in danger. He's—going to be taken. Or killed."

"How do you know?" Richie asks. He's staring at her, too, but not judgmentally; he looks like he believes her, like he may not understand it but he just believes her. That's Richie; he had faith in people. Has had faith in Bill for years, followed him blindly; has faith in the crazy stories they hear. He had faith in Eddie, who was assigned to fucking spy, and who hadn't spoken to Richie since age thirteen; he didn't know but he still had faith. That's Richie. 

"I… I don't know how I know," Bev says, and she sounds a little nauseous. "I just know. It's an intuition, you know? I just… I have a feeling. That guy is going to be taken if he stays. Soon."

Eddie's still a little hesitant, but Richie's face is set. Like he's already made up his mind. "Okay," he says. "So we have to tell them to get out of here." He pulls out his badge from the inside of his jacket. 

"Rich—" Eddie protests habitually, and then cuts himself off. He doesn't want Bev to think that he's discounting what she's saying, that he thinks she's nuts—you can't say that kind of thing to an old friend who you forgot and your mom called the government-cops on, who you literally just reconnected with. He modifies and says, "That's not a proper use of our badg—"

"Fuck that, Eds, this ain't our first rodeo," Richie says, probably too loudly. "These suited fuckers run around flashing badges and erasing the brains of little kids, and we can't misuse ours for good? Vigilante, baby!" Eddie must still be hesitating, because Richie lowers his voice and adds, "At least we can save someone… right? What's the worst that can happen if it's a misplaced instinct?"

He's right, although Eddie won't fucking tell him that. If they don't do this and that guy dies… He sighs and nods. "Okay, but you do the talking, and try not to sound completely fucking creepy. Okay?"

"Right-o," Richie says, and claps Eddie on the shoulder. 

Relieved, Bev says, "Thanks, guys," pushing hair behind her ear. She sounds a little embarrassed. "I don't know where that came from, but… I didn't feel like I should ignore it."

"No problem, little lady," Richie drawls in his Cowboy Voice, and starts off across the grass towards the purported Adrian and his boyfriend. Eddie falls into step beside him, trying to stifle a laugh—Richie's Cowboy Voice is pretty hard _not_ to laugh at. 

The guys are talking and laughing, passing a bag of cheesy popcorn back and forth, but they seem to tense up when they see Richie and Eddie approaching. Eddie can't really blame them, in Derry; Henry Bowers may be gone, but the town is still here, and the town is still awful. He debates smiling for a second before deciding that it's probably a bad idea to smile just before walking up and telling someone to get out of town for their own safety. Adrian shades his eyes and glares a little; the other guy shifts uncomfortably on the grass. The back of Richie's neck is turning red, a sure sign that he's nervous, but he offers a small smile and flashes his badge. "Hey, I'm Richie Tozier, with the FBI. And this is my partner, Edward Kaspbrak. Could we have a word with you?"

The men tense. Adrian says coolly, "Have we broken the law?"

"No," Richie says quickly. "No, not at all. We…" He looks over his shoulder at Bev, sitting on the bench, and then back at Adrian and his boyfriend. "I'm sure you know about the recent disappearances," he says, awkwardly. 

"That's what we're here to investigate," adds Eddie, because that information seems important. 

"We've heard about it," says the other guy. "We don't… have any information, if that's what you're looking for."

"No, it's not," Richie says. He clears his throat uncomfortably and goes on, "We… have reason to believe that you may be in danger. Sources suggest that… in this line of disappearances, you may be next."

Adrian's boyfriend looks stunned, drawing back suddenly as if Richie had slapped him. Adrian just keeps staring at them coolly. "Who told you that?" 

"We can't tell you that," Richie says. "But we advise getting out of town for a while. For your own safety."

"This fucking town," the boyfriend mutters under his breath, like it's a curse. Eddie can relate to that. "Adrian, maybe we should…"

"What makes you think that we might be next?" Adrian asks. He still sounds suspicious, although he softens a little when his boyfriend lays a hand overtop of his. "Kids have been disappearing. We're not exactly kids."

"Like he said," says Eddie, "we can't say." He's starting to regret his initial doubt; looking at the couple, he keeps returning to what Richie said. _At least we can save someone._ Even if Bev is wrong—and Eddie's starting to get this feeling, in the pit of his gut, that she isn't wrong—it's worth it to keep people safe. These people. He suddenly has a strong urge to see these people safe. "But we do advise getting out of town. Strongly." He clears his throat, lowers his voice, and adds, "We grew up here. We know how this place can be… For your own safety, I would get out of town for a little while. I really would."

"Maybe we should go down to Boston for a couple nights," the other man says, his hand still over Adrian's. "We talked about going somewhere this summer… We could go see Alan and everybody."

Adrian sighs, intertwining their fingers and squeezing his boyfriend's hand. "I don't get it. If we're a target, who says these fuckers wouldn't follow us wherever we went?"

"They won't," says Richie. "Trust us, they won't. You're better off just getting out of Derry. This place is fucking awful."

The boyfriend laughs sharply and nods. Adrian shrugs. "Okay. Fine. Sure. We can split for a couple days. I don't want anything to happen to Don. Thanks for the head's up, I guess."

Richie shrugs. "That's what we do."

Eddie has a few cards in his pocket, intended for Ms. Winterbarger, but he pulls one out and passes it to the boyfriend, Don. "Call us if you need anything."

"Sure," says Don, and takes it. 

They start to turn away, but are stopped by Adrian's words. "Hey, I didn't know the FBI was investigating this," he says. "Are you with those shady men in suits who are always hanging around? It's fucking creepy."

Eddie isn't sure what to say to that—his instinct is to say yes, or to dodge the question—but Richie answers for him. "We definitely are not," he says. "Definitely, definitely not." 

Adrian looks a little surprised. Eddie halts the conversation with a hand on Richie's arm, and they exchange pointed, silent looks on the way back to Bev.

\---

Ms. Winterbarger shows up not long after this. She looks every bit the grieving parents that the Bellwoods are, red eyes and uncombed hair. But she shakes their hands and thanks them for meeting her. "No one believes me about this," she says. "Nobody wants to _listen_ … I talked to the police, and some other men from the government, and they just dismissed me and told me Laurie Ann was with her father. Or probably dead."

Richie jabs Eddie in the side, and Eddie ignores it, suppressing the urge to elbow him. "We want to find out what happened to your daughter," he says. 

"I'm glad." Ms. Winterbarger twists a Kleenex in one fist. "Although, I already know what happened."

The three of them exchange a look, seated awkwardly on the park bench. Bev—who said previously that she'd kind of stay out of it, citing her lack of experience in all of this—clears her throat. Richie shifts awkwardly and says, "Can you tell us what happened, Ms. Winterbarger?"

"They think my ex took her," she says. "Her father. That's what the police said, at least. The men from the government came later and said that he didn't have her and she was dead and I should let it go. I don't know if she's dead. I…" Her voice breaks. "I don't want to _believe_ that she's dead." She swallows back a sob, wiping her eyes with the Kleenex. "I can tell you what happened. I remember every part of that day. I was doing laundry. Our dryer's on the fritz again, so I hung it outside. Sheets. I do them once a month." She sniffles once, twice, and wipes away tears with the back of one hand. "Laurie Ann wanted to ride her trike up and down the block. I told her that was fine. I thought it'd be okay—cause I was outside, I could _hear_ everything. And she didn't even vanish riding her trike. She vanished in my own goddamn yard."

Ms. Winterbarger breaks it off then, scrubbing at her face with the used tissue, swallowing back tears. They wait for her to continue. She does in a moment, speaking through unshed tears. "Laurie Ann came back and I told her to come inside before it stormed. I went in. And then I heard her screaming." She chews at her lower lip furiously, shreds the Kleenex between two fingers. "When I got back outside, she was gone. I looked and looked and I couldn't find her. She was gone."

Eddie's throat is tightening for some reason he can't put his finger on; he clears it in an attempt to loosen up. Richie asks gently, "Why do you think your ex husband didn't do it?" They know, of course, that he didn't, but it's important to cover all the bases. 

Ms. Winterbarger laughs bitterly. "My ex is a rat bastard. I made sure he didn't get custody of Laurie Ann. But he lives in Florida, Laurie Ann doesn't remember him, and he's never shown any interest in her before. There's plenty of reasons why he wouldn't have taken her. But there's one really good one that outweighs all those."

Eddie's chest is tight too, for some reason. He doesn't know why. He clears his throat again, uncomfortably, and says, "What's that?"

"I saw what did."

Richie makes a surprised small sound in his throat, eyes wide. Eddie pulls at his collar uncomfortably; this is what they've been looking for all this time, but he doesn't know that he wants to hear it. To hear Ms. Winterbarger say, _Aliens,_ and have that confirmation. They're abductees. Aliens took them and fucked around in their brain and did God knows what else. Eddie isn't sure he could bear that. 

Bev says, in the gentlest voice, "What was it, Ms. Winterbarger? What did you see?"

"A monster," says Ms. Winterbarger, matter-of-factly, without a trace of hesitation. Her voice is firm. "A monster took my daughter. I saw it. I saw it in the mirror that night, standing behind me and laughing. I saw its silhouette behind the sheets when I went out looking for Laurie Ann, and I ripped them down, and I tried to find it and beg it to bring her back, but I couldn't find it. It was behind the sheets and It wouldn't let me see. But I heard Laurie Ann screaming."

Eddie's uncomfortable. He's cold suddenly, shivering even though it's in the 80s or 90s, breaking into a cold sweat. His throat is getting tight. He's going to have an asthma attack. "Erm," Richie says hesitantly, sounding as if he's scared, too, "Ms. Winterbarger…"

"It was a monster," she says, and her voice breaks. "It was a monster. But it looked like a clown."

Bev makes a sound something like a choked gasp. Richie's eyes are huge behind his glasses. Ms. Winterbarger's eyes are hard, with no hint of hesitation, and Eddie can't breathe. He can't breathe, he can't breathe. 

He's wheezing and trying to hide it. Richie turns towards him worriedly, says, "Eds?" Eddie tries to wave it off. He sucks in air and comes up with nothing. He manages to bite out, "I'm—so sorry, I… Please excuse me. Please." 

He stands and heads for the bathroom as quickly as he can, waving off Bev's attempts to go with him. This is ridiculous. This is _ridiculous_ , this shouldn't bother him. But she said it was a monster that looks like a clown, and Eddie can't breathe. He pushes through the swinging door in one motion and enters the bathroom.

Eddie hates park bathrooms. They always look nasty, wet stone floors and paper towels and toilet paper and dirt, and they're horribly lit… This one has dim lighting from one dirty tinted window and a faded blue fluorescent light overhead. It drives him nuts. He doesn't think about that, though; he leans forward, hands on the side of the sink, and tries to steady his breathing. Tries to loosen the tightness in his throat. He doesn't want to use his inhaler; normally, he wouldn't hesitate, but for some reason right now, he doesn't want to use his inhaler. 

He breathes as slowly as he can—in through the nose and out through the mouth—staring at his own reflection in the mirror with wide eyes. "This—is ridiculous," he wheezes out loud. He doesn't believe in monsters. This is aliens, that's what Bill always said, and there's evidence for aliens to exist, and he doesn't believe, and it's _ridiculous._ "Breathe," he snaps at his own reflection. "Fucking _breathe_."

Above Eddie's head, the fluorescent light flickers. His fingers tighten around the seat. Somewhere from deeper in the bathroom, he hears a deep, craggly voice growl, " _Eddie_."

Eddie whirls immediately, back to the door, squinting at the shadowy corners of the bathroom. It's abnormally dark for the middle of the day; he can barely even make out the stalls. He takes a raspy breath, hardens his voice, and calls, "Who's there?"

The light flickers again, more noticeably this time. There's a strange smell in the bathroom—not a normal bathroom smell, but a smell that involuntarily makes Eddie think, _Sickness._ That automatically makes him flinch. He looks at the shadows, then over his shoulder at the door. He takes a step towards the door, towards the daylight spilling in through the crack. 

The lights flicker, spark, and go out, plunging the tiny, dank bathroom into darkness—a darkness that shouldn't even be possible at this time of day. The door shuts firmly, blocking out the little smudge of daylight. Eddie can hear the lock click. He hears the lock click and it is dark—it's _so_ dark—and he can't see and he can't breathe. 

And spilling out of the shadows again, he hears the voice. The voice growling, intoning, " _Eddie. What are you looking for?_ "

"I'm a f-f-federal agent," Eddie stammers but it sounds all wrong, his voice is shaking, he can't breathe and he sounds like a child, and he's _trapped in here,_ trapped in here with It, he has to run. He stumbles backwards until his back hits the sink, shaking all over, trembling in the darkness. He can hear it, can hear the rasping, unhealthy sound of its breathing, can hear it moving in the dark. Rustling around the wall. He hears a footstep and wheezes in panic as he hears another, another, coming towards _him,_ walking towards him, and he can't breathe, and he gives up and fumbles in his pocket for his inhaler, but it isn't there, it _isn't there_. The footsteps are drawing closer, accompanied by a labored breathing with a whistle in the lungs, and he's wheezing so hard he's nearly sobbing, when he hears the voice in his ear, tearfully saying, "Eddie?"

Eddie whirls, whirls on instinct, because he knows that voice even if it's impossible. He whirls and he sees it, her silhouette in the mirror. Her mouth moving as she says, "Eddie-bear?"

Eddie gasps, but he doesn't hear it. His mouth moves, against his will, saying, "Mommy?" automatically even though he doesn't want to, because it's _impossible_. His mom is dead. But she's there. She's right in front of him, standing there, he can see the shape of her in the mirror. 

"Eddie-bear," she says, and her voice is choked like she's crying. She's sobbing. "Eddie, you left me here. I always _knew_ you'd leave me, you left me all alone…"

"No," Eddie says without thinking, because all he is thinking— _screaming_ in his head—is, _She's dead. This isn't real, she's dead._ "No, Mom, I didn't leave you here… We left together, you made me leave with you…"

"You left me!" she wails, the thing that is not his mother. "You left me, you ran away! Don't you lie to me, Edward Kapsbrak, I saw you. What kind of son runs away from his own mother?"

Eddie claps his hands over his eyes. This can't be happening, he won't see it, he isn't here and it isn't real. He presses his palms into his eyes and stifles a whimper as his mom rants and shouts. And then her voice turns, suddenly. Turns rock-hard and stern. She says, "Maybe I should take you to see those men."

Eddie's breath catches in his throat and he yanks his hands away from his eyes because he _knows,_ immediately, who she is talking about, without even asking, and it can't be. It can't be. "No," he croaks. 

"They can _help_ you, Eddie," she says, rigid and angry. "They told me they can cure you. They can make it so you won't want to run away from your mother… so you won't run wild with those friends of yours…"

"No," Eddie says, and it's louder now. His breathing is coming in little gasps; he takes a shaking step back from the mirror, leper forgotten. 

"Those friends aren't good for you. They hurt you, Eddie," says the mother thing. "Don't you want to be cured, Eddie? Don't you want to get better?"

" _No_!" Eddie roars, filled with a sudden fury, and he takes an unthinking swing at the mirror. 

Something stops his hand mid-motion. A hand closes around his arm like a vice, holding on tight, a shadowy figure a million times taller than him that grips his arm like he's a child. Eddie stumbles, tumbles to the ground. Tumbles to the ground and tries to crawl away, but Its got him by the arm still. It holds tight and starts to drag him, pulling him across the floor. 

The thing that sounds like his mother is wailing now, but not for the same reason—she's screaming words, screaming, "Where are you taking him? Don't be so rough, he's delicate, you told me you wouldn't hurt him!" 

And it's all familiar, and Eddie sees it again: Bev climbing out his window, suited men at the door. He tries to wrench his arm away, but the grip tightens, and they yank him harder. He hears another voice, layered under the other sounds: Richie as a kid, bellowing at the top of his lungs indignantly, "What the fuck are you doing? Let him go! He's hurt, you motherfuckers, where are you taking him—let him _go_!" Kid Bev whispering frantically, "You have to come with me, Eddie, you don't know what they'll do to you…" Richie again, shouting, "Are you happy now? Are you fucking happy? They took him! They have him now, is that what you fucking wanted?" His mother screeching, "Don't hurt him! Oh, please don't hurt him!" Himself as a kid, screaming. Just screaming—not in pain but in fear, just pure, unadulterated fear. And the hand has still got him, has him in a hard, unyielding hold and is pulling him away. 

Eddie lets out a panicked scream of his own. He begins to struggle, yanking, twisting in the grasp; it does nothing. The hand doesn't loosen, the pulling doesn't stop. He can hear the voices of all his friends now, his friends as kids, screaming and shouting, the sound of palms banging against something. Like they're just on the other side of the mirror and they're trying to break out. Over the din and the chaos, there is the voice of Stan as a child; Eddie recognizes it from the radio. Stan is screaming and crying, the same thing over and over again: "You left me! You took me into Neibolt! You're not my friends!" The thing that isn't his mother is crying. He is shouting, his child self. The sound is building up, walling Eddie in, his head pounding, and they've still got him, they aren't letting him go. The hand yanks upward, yanks him to his feet, and Eddie lets out a panicked yelp and pulls hard, scrambling half on his feet, trying to get away. 

Something works. Something snaps. The hand lets go, and Eddie tumbles to the ground in a rough heap. The sound stops. The lights flicker. The temperature drops around him. 

He doesn't know what to do. And he hasn't decided yet when he hears it: a maniacal, high-pitched giggle coming from above him. Behind him. 

He breaks out into a cold, shaking sweat as soon as he hears it; he _knows_ that giggle. He knows he should run, but he can't move, not even when a sharp, white-gloved hand comes down hard on his shoulder. 

"Want to know a secret, Eddie-bear?" the voice says in his ear, jovial and giggly and maybe the worst thing Eddie has heard. " _None_ of you will get away this time."

Something clicks into place. Something loosens, and Eddie can finally scream. Can scream at the top of his lungs, until his chest and throat ache. Until the bathroom door swings open so hard it hits the opposite wall, spilling warm summer daylight over the floor. " _Eds_!" somebody shouts, and Eddie opens his eyes. It's Richie. Richie, standing over him, silhouetted by the sun in the doorway. 

He falls to his knees beside Eddie, talking in a rush—"Eds, Eds, Jesus Christ, are you okay?"—his hands fumbling in an attempt to find the injury. It's the same dance they've done a thousand times, every single time they've been injured, and Eddie knows his lines. He says, _I'm fine, Rich, I'm fine, I'm a medical doctor, I'm fine._ Or, _I need to get to the hospital and get checked out_ , along with some more shit about being a medical doctor. But he can't say that now. He can't speak. He can barely even move. 

Richie's hand lands awkwardly on the side of his neck, like he's trying to take a pulse. "Eddie, what happened?" he asks quietly. "We… heard you screaming." His eyes are wide with worry, crouching on the nasty fucking bathroom floor. 

Eddie's throat works, he finds the words and speaks. "It was nothing," he says raspily, unthinking, and then he jerks upward and wraps his arms around Richie. 

Richie's stiff for a moment before responding, wrapping his arms tight around Eddie's back. "You… okay, Spaghetti Man?" he says tentatively. "You sounded pretty freaked… and you were having an attack, before…" 

Eddie takes deep breaths, his forehead against Richie's shoulder, before pulling back, climbing to his feet. "Rich," he says. He's trying to joke, but it comes out shaky. "I hate to admit this, but I think Ms. Winterbarger is right."

Richie climbs up beside him, staring at him oddly. "What… do you mean?" he asks tentatively. His expression sharpens in realization; his hand on Eddie's arm tightens. "Did you see something?"

"I… yes," Eddie says. And he would say more, except for the wail of sirens that suddenly erupts outside of the bathroom. Multiple sirens, cops, an ambulance, it's clear as their eyes meet knowingly: something's happened. 

Bev appears in the doorway, face full of concern, eyes hidden by the sunglasses she'd borrowed from Eddie in what she described as "a pathetic attempt at hiding." "Eddie! Are you okay?" 

"I'm fine, I'm fine." Eddie waves it away distractedly. "What's happening? What happened?"

"Ms. Winterbarger left," Bev says. "But… the police are going down to the bridge. People are panicking, leaving the park. They… they're saying stuff about finding Jerry Bellwood."

Richie's face goes white, his eyes widening, and he swears under his breath. Eddie—his heart still pounding, his throat still tight with fear—puts a hand on Richie's arm, gently as he can. "We have to go, Rich," he says softly. He doesn't want to see what's on the other side of those police cars any more than Richie does, but he has to. It's what they came here for. 

\---

The crime scene is down under the bridge by the river. The police have swarmed around it, yellow caution tape strung around the scene, but Richie and Eddie push down towards the scene anyways. Bev pokes around up the river, staying away from the cops. 

Richie's stomach rolls with every step they take closer to the crime scene. He does not want to see what's on the other side of that tape, doesn't want the confirmation that Jerry is dead, that they couldn't save him, or that they could've saved him but were too late. He's constantly going over that factor, and has been since Bill first brought it up—one night sleeping out on Mike's farm at age fifteen, when they were the only ones awake, and Bill looked over with wide eyes and whispered, _W-what if Georgie didn't die right away? What if we c-c-could have saved him, but we didn't?_ It stuck with him a little, remembering Georgie and what a sweet kid he had been, remembering Bill and his furious quest, remembering how they hadn't ever found Georgie, at least not that they could remember. A therapist would have a field day with this shit. He's tired of missing and dead kids, and he's tired of not being able to save them, and he wanted to find Jerry Bellwood and bring him home. But he knows that's not possible now. Right now, he's wondering how he ever thought it was. 

Eddie seems as shaken as Richie is, probably more so—Richie keeps returning to that moment in the park when he looked to the bathroom and heard Eddie screaming. This shit happens sometimes—they get separated and one of them gets into a scrap—but it's never been like that. Something about the whole thing shoved Richie backwards, into being a kid again. A scared kid running to find his friend. And Eddie was fine, but he said he saw something, he said Ms. Winterbarger was right, and Richie doesn't have time to process that, doesn't _want_ to process that, but it's significant. Whatever Eddie saw, it shook him; he's quiet and pale, too, eyes shifting rapidly from point to point in the crime scene. Things are getting worse. 

Richie takes a steadying breath, shaking his head, and pulls out his badge before approaching a cop. (A cop he doesn't recognize, who hopefully wasn't at the station yesterday. He's not in the mood for an argument.) "We're with the Federal Bureau of Investigation," he says. "Can you tell us what happened here?"

The cop doesn't look overly hostile; she just looks grim, adjusting her hat with a sort of finality. "They found the Bellwood kid," she says solemnly. No questions in that. 

They have to ask them anyway. "When?" Eddie asks. 

"About a half an hour ago. Somebody called it in. They found his baseball cap. Has his name written on the inside. And a lot of blood." The cop winces, shrugging. "I guess the kid could still be alive, but with that much blood?" Richie winces, too. The cop nods, shrugs, and then shoots them a suspicious sort of look, not unlike all the other suspicious looks they've gotten since they came home. "Are you with those other government guys?" she asks. "Your guys got here before we did. Shouldn't you be up to speed?"

Richie's stomach turns, and he's got his mouth open to answer before he can even really decide what to say, but before he can, a man is stepping between them and the cop. A man wearing a suit, looking and sounding and smelling strangely familiar, even if Richie can't put his finger on where he recognizes it. The man stinks, unpleasantly, of old cigarette smoke. 

"Thank you, Officer, I can take it from here," the man says cheerfully. The cop looks between them and walks away, heading down towards the bank of the rivers. The man smiles at Richie and Eddie—a double-edged smile. Richie knows the type. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you gentlemen to leave," he says. "You're not authorized to be here."

"We're with the FBI," Richie snaps, trying to quell the feelings of that kid hiding in the pantry. He is not that kid anymore, and he is going to use that authority when he can, goddamnit. "We're here to investigate…"

"I know who you are and I know why you're here. You think this is a case for that foolish little X-Files unit." The suited man smiles wider. The smile of a wolf or a fox. "Or maybe you're just chasing demons from your hometown. But I can assure you you're looking in the wrong place. There is nothing unusual about these deaths."

"Five kids disappear in the span of a couple of months and you think there's nothing unusual here?" Eddie says, glaring at the man. "At the very least there's a serial killer at large…"

The suited man interrupts him: "We've investigated. The cause of these deaths is completely normal. There's no need to continue to look. And I'll tell you again: you have no authorization to be digging into any of this." 

The smile is gone, and the man is just staring at them now, a warning in his voice. The same warnings men just like him handed out when they were kids. Richie may be an adult now, and he may be playing at having authority, but the thirteen-year-old inside of him is pathetically still fucking scared of a man in a suit telling him to stop. "People are getting hurt," he says, his voice low and hard. "Families are looking for closure… they _deserve_ to know what is happening in their town."

"They do know. They've been given the only answers there are." The suited man crosses his arms. "Agents Tozier and Kaspbrak, I am going to have to ask you to stop looking into this and leave the town of Derry immediately. I know your superiors didn't approve this case. I know you are here against orders. If you have any care for your professional futures at the Bureau, you will cease this line of investigation immediately."

Eddie starts to answer, but Richie's talking before he can, too fast and probably too sarcastic in the way that pisses people off and makes them call him ridiculous nicknames or put notes in his file or threaten suspension. He can't bring himself to care. "You think that's enough to scare us off? We've got somebody threatening closure every goddamn week, you're not special. And we are _not_ going to leave this alone."

"Agent Tozier…" the suited man says warningly, but Richie isn't finished. He keeps going, pitching his voice higher in the hopes that someone normal nearby will hear him and listen. "We're fucking sick of seeing people do this. You're letting kids get taken and then you're lying to people about what happens to them! You did the same fucking thing in 1989, and nobody gave a shit. We're not going to fucking let you do it again."

"Agent Tozier!" snaps the suited man. Eddie is poking him in the arm like he wants Richie to shut up, fear on his face. Out of the corner of his eye, Richie can see Bev sneaking back to the car; he hopes no one saw her. 

He smirks. "You one of the ones who chased us around when we were kids?" he says. "You look old enough for it, Grandpa. Scared a bunch of thirteen-year-olds were gonna take you dinosaurs down? We must've done something right, or you wouldn't have resorted to kidnapping innocent kids…"

"One more word, Agent Tozier, and I'll make sure you and your partner never work in the Bureau again. Or I'll arrest you for spreading false information about a government case." The suited man's eyes flash dangerously; he grips Richie by the arm and yanks him forward until they're face to face. 

"Hey," Eddie says abruptly, his voice shaking, "hey, knock it the fuck off!"

The suited man looks at Eddie amusedly. "I wouldn't speak that way to me, Agent Kaspbrak. I am your superior, after all. And you've disappointed quite a lot of people during your time in the Bureau." He smirks a little. "And _before_ your time in the Bureau, if I had to guess."

Eddie looks stung, just a little. But he also looks furious, and he doesn't move from Richie's side, one hand on Richie's arm like he's gonna pull Richie back from the suited man. Richie's strangely proud, and would say so if he wasn't being manhandled by the Nicotine Crypt Keeper. 

"I am only going to say this one more time," the suited man says, his voice low and furious. Richie's knees quiver involuntarily, to his surprise; it's silly, but the way the man is talking right now seems familiar, like maybe Richie had nightmares about it as a kid. Maybe this dinosaur really is one of the OG suited men. He's got a hard grip on Richie's arm, and the nicotine smell is stronger, and his eyes are hard when he says, "Stay away from these cases. Let this go and get out of Derry. I can _assure_ you… you will regret it if you don't." He lets go of Richie abruptly, sending him stumbling back a little. "You should know what I mean," he says quietly. "And you should walk away while you still can."

The suited man seems to take his own words literally; he turns and walks away himself, without a trace of hesitation in his steps. "Hey!" Richie yells after him, because he can't knock it off. "Hey, buddy, was that a _threat_?"

"Richie, come _on,_ " Eddie hisses, tugging at his elbow. "Don't… don't make it worse, okay?"

"What?" Richie says innocently as they turn away from the crime scene. "We're not scared of them, right? We're trying to _stop_ those fucking guys; that's the whole point."

"Yeah, we're trying to stop them. And maybe you're not scared of them. But I am." Eddie shoots him an annoyed look. "They fucked up my whole life, remember? Made me move. Fucked with my head— _all_ of our heads. And remember what Bev said? It didn't stop after I left Derry." 

He's shaken—more shaken than usual when they talk about this. Or he's got good at hiding his fear. Maybe it's from the encounter in the bathroom, whatever the fuck that was. But it's enough to make Richie feel guilty. "Hey, Eds, I'm sorry," he says quietly, holding up the caution tape so they can duck under it. "I'm scared of them, too, you know? I just.. you know me. My coping mechanism is being a complete fucking jackass."

Eddie nods a little but doesn't say anything, in step beside him as they walk back to the car. Richie feels the need to add, "I'm just angry, okay? They're just… they're fucking covering this up, and I'm fucking sick of it." The cop's words come back to him: _baseball cap… too much blood…_ and he thinks of Georgie and of blood in the streets, and Betty Ripsom's shoe, and the Bellwoods last night, looking at them with hope, thinking that their son might come home. They're going to be getting that call soon, and they're going to know that he was full of shit last night, see right through his empty promises. Now they'll probably never know anything besides the fact that Jerry is gone. Just like they'll never be sure what happened to Georgie. 

"They're fucking monsters," Eddie says in a low voice. "They covered this up. We know they did. And we're going to figure out what happened. What happened to those kids, and to Georgie, and to us. We're gonna find it." He pats Richie's arm, an attempt at comfort. "I just don't want to get killed or mind wiped in the process. Okay?"

"Dunno if we can avoid that, Spaghetti, but sure. Okay." Richie pats his arm right back. Looks at Eddie for a moment and feels guilty all over again, because he'll do a lot without worrying about risking his own life, but he can't risk Eddie. He keeps returning to that moment outside the bathroom, when he heard Eddie screaming—different from all the other times they've been in danger on cases; worse—and thought, maybe irrationally, _I can't lose him again._ He thinks maybe he never really got over coming to Eddie's house and finding it empty and _knowing_ the suited men made him go; he held onto that postcard, that last line of communication for years, like a security blanket, cause it was confirmation that Eddie had been okay. (He still has it somewhere, buried under files and papers in his briefcase; Ben talked him into cleaning out his closet two months after he and Eddie started working together, and he found it in a box of stuff and stuck it in his briefcase for safekeeping, and then he never took it out.) It's like that guy Adrian and how he gave into the idea of leaving for his boyfriend— _I don't want anything to happen to Don,_ he'd said. It's like that. Richie's not gonna wrap Eddie in bubble wrap, but he's not gonna be the reason Eddie gets fired or memory-wiped or kidnapped or killed. He can jump on that grenade. Sure fucking thing. 

Bev's hunched down in the backseat when they get into the car, and she looks up when they climb in. "What happened?" she asks in a hushed voice. 

"We were told to stop investigating by a suited man, who Richie promptly pissed off," says Eddie. 

Okay, maybe he's still a little bitter. Richie resists the urge to stick out his tongue and says instead, "I think he might've been one of the OGs from when we were kids. Glad you stayed back, Bev."

"Yeah, well, I found something, over on the other side of the river," says Bev. She pokes at her tiny flip-burner-phone until she finds what she's looking for and holds it up for them to see. "It's a message. For us."

Eddie sucks in his breath when he sees the photo and Richie curses under his breath, thoughts about the suited men forgotten. He's sick to his stomach thinking about Jerry Bellwood again, ten-year-old kid who wore a baseball cap like that little girl in the park. He's returning back to that moment when Ms. Winterbarger said, _It was a monster,_ and Bev looked like she was gonna pass out, and Eddie had an asthma attack, and Richie broke out into a quivering, shivering cold sweat despite it being fucking July. 

There's something here. There's something here, worse than the suited men, and they don't know what it is, but they've seen it before. It knows them. Maybe it's aliens, or maybe it's a monster, or something else entirely, but it knows them. And it's looking for them. 

The picture is tiny and grainy, but they can make it out. It's one of the concrete support beams for the bridge. There's words written on it, scrawled in huge letters with what looks like blood. 

It says, _COME HOME COME HOME COME HOME._

\---

They go back to the hotel. They aren't sure what else to do, besides wait for the others to get there. It seems useless to keep searching, the threats of the suited man and the Bellwood crime scene still fresh in their minds. Whatever happened to Eddie is still fresh on their minds, too. He hasn't told them what it was, and Richie won't ask, but he can guess. Something like what happened with the radio last night. Something bad is coming. He can feel it in the air, like a storm. 

"Mike just texted," says Eddie as they pull up to the hotel. "They're close. Twenty or thirty minutes away." He looks back over his shoulder at Bev. "He says they're all really looking forward to seeing you."

Bev tries to smile. It comes out wobbly, but there's still genuine emotion in her voice when she says, "I'm excited to see them, too."

"We should probably lie low til they get here," Eddie continues. He sounds half confident, but still shaken on top of that. Tired. "What do you think, Rich?"

Richie shrugs. "Sure," he starts to say, but his phone starts buzzing in his pocket before he can. "Someone's calling," he says. "I bet it's one of the Loser Gunmen, huh?"

"Or our bosses," Eddie says grimly as Richie fishes his phone out and blinks in surprise at the display. 

The screen reads _Patty._ It's a picture of Patty last Thanksgiving, when she and Stan drove up to have Thanksgiving with them; she's sprawled out on one of the couches, wearing a pair of Eddie's sunglasses that Stan describes as "G-man glasses," flashing a peace sign and grinning hugely. And it's such a shock to see her name, thinking of the text he sent to Stan that went unanswered—the _voicemail_ he left that Stan never returned, the voicemail which shouldve freaked Stan the fuck out if he got it—that Richie goes a little shaky when he sees it. The reaction is unreasonable, but his first thought is, _Something's wrong._

Richie swallows hard and answers. "Pats?" he says, his voice husky. "What's up?"

He's so shaken himself that it takes a minute for him to realize that Patty is sniffling. That when she speaks, it sounds like she is crying. "Richie," she says, shakily. "Richie, it's… it's Stanley."

"What?" Richie's blood runs cold through his veins, his heart thudding, and he fumbles to put the phone on speaker. "What happened? Patty, is Stan okay?" Eddie's eyes widen in fear at his words, and he and Bev crowd around the phone to listen. 

"He's… he's missing," Patty says, her voice breaking. 

Richie feels like he's going to throw up. Head spinning, heart thudding, he presses his head against the car window and tries to breathe shallowly. Stan. Stan is missing. Stan is missing. Stan is missing, and they've been… they've been here, he's been chickening out of telling Stan, and they kept putting it off, and Stan was _missing._ Probably missing when Richie left that stupid fucking voicemail too late, that said absolutely nothing, really. And they didn't _know_. They didn't even bother to look. Didn't question why Stan, who always texts back quickly, even when he's pissed, wasn't answering. 

"What—Patty, how—what happened?" Eddie says, his voice shaking. He fumbles for the phone and grabs it. "Tell me what happened." 

"I… I don't know," Patty says, nearly in a whisper. "We were going to Argentina for a couple weeks, for our anniversary, but… my parents wanted to see me, so I flew up for the weekend. By myself. Stanley didn't want to go, I…" Her voice trembles. She takes a slow breath, and when she speaks again, it's steadier. "He stopped answering my texts after a couple days," she says. "I started worrying. You know us, Eds, we don't… we don't not talk. So I flew back this morning, I'd been calling him constantly and he didn't pick up, and when I got home…" 

"He was gone?" Eddie supplies, swiping a finger under his eyes. Bev has both hands over her mouth, her eyes wide. Richie shuts his eyes, head slumped against the window.

"He was gone," Patty confirms, her voice soft. "He left a note, but it wasn't… it was like he didn't write it. All it said was, _I have to go home._ Stanley wouldn't leave something so brief, he wouldn't… run off without telling me… And I called his parents, and they haven't talked to him, so he didn't mean there, and I…" She sniffles again, loudly. "The police told me not to worry about it," she says. "That there's no sign that he was in any distress, like not answering calls and leaving a cryptic note isn't… I think they think he's left me."

"Stan wouldn't do that," Richie croaks. It is still bright outside the window. Still a sunny summer afternoon. There's people enjoying the summer sun, going to the Canal Day Festival, oblivious to everything that is happening. An alien, or a monster, or something, is taking people. Killing children. Maybe taking their friend. Maybe it has their friend. 

(He won't let himself consider that maybe it's too late. It can't be. It can't be too late.)

"I know," says Patty, her voice firm. "I know. So I called you. I didn't know what else to do." She takes a deep breath, like she's steeling herself up. "Maybe I'm crazy, maybe… but I think this is serious. And Stanley hasn't told me much about your childhood, but he's told me some, and you all have told me what you're looking for, and I… He wrote that he was going home."

Bev sucks in a sharp breath. Richie swallows a groan. Eddie says in a strangled voice, "Pats, you don't think…"

"Maybe I'm crazy," Patty says again. "But I think he's gone to Derry. And I don't think it was his decision."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the details about laurie ann and ms. winterbarger are a mix of book and miniseries, with my own slight spin on it. the COME HOME scene at the end is also a book reference. 
> 
> bev's background in this au was originally meant to parallel susanne modeski from TXF (because ben has a very john byers vibe to me), but ended up kind of paralleling stuff like the samantha mulder arc/AU fic i've written about those types of characters. there is of course no need to have context for any of this to understand this story, but if anyone has seen txf and is interested, i've written several fics digging further into characters like samantha that kind of parallels what i did with bev's arc here.
> 
> i've been wanting to write a fic where adrian lives, and considering how heavily this varies from canon, this seemed like the one to do it in. 
> 
> the suited man at the end of the chapter is inspired by/a reference to the Cigarette Smoking Man in TXF, who seemed too iconic not to reference at all, but is very much supposed to represent the faceless sort of villain men in black trope. 
> 
> next chapter should be getting into a version (albeit somewhat altered) of the chapter 2 canon, and will contain more of the other losers. 
> 
> hit me up on twitter or tumblr (@graceskuls or @how-i-met-your-mulder)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's odd for Stan to leave Patty without a word, and it's odd for him to show an interest in Derry at all—he's been strictly against it since Eddie came back, and even longer according to the others. But maybe he was just scared. Maybe he knew he had to come back. Maybe he's just fine, and he's poking around one of their old haunts looking for answers, looking for monsters. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry for the sheer length of this chapter. it really got away from me, and i wasn't sure how to shorten it because i couldn't really bring myself to cut anything. 
> 
> warning up front for some scary stuff/horror imagery, and some violence -- mainly in the vein of the bathroom scene in chapter 2 but a little different. 
> 
> hit me up on twitter @graceskuls and on tumblr @how-i-met-your-mulder

Stan got married when they were twenty-two, in the backyard of a mansion thingy in Patty's hometown. Even though Patty's dad despised him, he told Bill and Richie over lunch one day. "Hates my guts. But Pats told me she's always wanted to get married there, ever since she was a kid." He had that dreamy look in his eyes that he got whenever he talked about Patty, that was equal parts endearing and annoying. (Mostly endearing, but just because they both liked Patty so much. Richie and Bill both knew Patty well at that point, even if they were all at different colleges; they were all in the city, so they met up frequently, and Richie pronounced her "way too cool for Stan" immediately.) 

He asked Richie and Bill and Mike to be his groomsmen when Mike came down to New York that summer—on the condition, he said, that no one let Richie get ahold of the microphone the night of. They agreed, of course, and they drove up with Stan and Patty the weekend of—the five of them plus Audra crammed into a van to cross the state of New York. It was complete chaos and maybe one of the best road trips in Richie's memory; Patty insisted it was the best bachelorette party in the world. 

The wedding itself was great, Stan's dad's asshole tendencies and Patty's dad's evil eye aimed towards Stan aside. Richie remembers standing up there with Bill and Mike, watching Stan and thinking, _He's all grown up,_ and getting a little choked up. He kept thinking, _I'm glad I got to be here for this._ And maybe it was a silly thought, because why wouldn't he be there for that, but he kept returning to something Stan said when they were kids. He didn't think they'd all still hang out when they were older. But here they were. (Richie might have teared up a little during the ceremony. Bill might have seen him and teased him mercilessly afterward.)

Richie spent most of the night clinging to Bill and Mike and Audra, the logical choice in a wedding packed with family he didn't know and the like. Stan and Patty were busy, of course—socializing with everybody, and being wrapped up in each other—Richie saw them at one point on the dance floor, just completely wrapped around each other and fucking _nuzzling_ , it was sweet but also nauseating—but Stan managed to grab a few minutes at the table with the three of them. Patty was talking to her aunts, and Audra was dancing with some friends of Patty's she knew, so it was just the four remaining Losers there. Stan was emotional and maybe a little tipsy; he kept thanking them for coming, and saying how happy he was that they were there. "I'm so glad you guys could be here," he said, leaning against Mike and wiping his eyes. "I just… really love you guys, you know?"

"We love you, too, Stan," Mike said, slinging an arm around his shoulders. 

Stan wiped his eyes again and cleared his throat. "I wish the others could have been here, too, you know," he said thickly. "Ben and Eddie. I really miss them."

Richie's spine stiffened immediately, tensing. It wasn't like they never talked about the others—they swapped memories about old times all the time, and Ben and Eddie kinda inevitably fell into that—but Ben was a rare subject since they'd kind of fallen out of touch, and Eddie was even rarer. They almost never brought them up in the present like this—talking about what they were doing, or should have been doing, now.

"I miss them, too," said Mike, looking down at his napkin. Stan nodded emphatically. Richie nodded, too, unable to offer anything else. He _did_ miss them. He'd been missing Eddie for nine years. He tried not to think about it too much.

"I think we'll see them again," Bill said. Like he _knew._ Like even then, he knew. "I really think we will."

"I hope so," said Stan. He swallowed thickly, sitting up straight again. "I felt like they should've been here. Like I noticed they were missing, you know? It was… I miss them both. I feel like we should all be together again."

They all nodded to that, Richie maybe a little enthusiastically. "Hey, Stancakes," he said then, maybe a little tipsy himself, and thinking back to that moment on the altar when he remembered what Stan said as a kid. "You remember when we were thirteen? You thought we wouldn't all hang out as adults?"

Mike shot him a weird look, which Richie guessed meant it wasn't a memory they all had. But Stan nodded, almost gravely, and said, "Yeah, I remember."

"You were wrong," Richie said—not in a taunting way, or at least he didn't mean it that way. "And Bill was right. And I know we're, like… young adults or whatever, but here we are. How fucking weird is that?"

"It's not that weird," Bill said, rubbing the palm where he had the weird scar that matched the rest of theirs—a long white line diagonal across it. (Thinking about it now, Richie can't help but think that it should've been obvious that Bev was one of them cause she has that scar, too. Not super noticeable, but it's there.) "I mean, we're _connected,_ you know? We went through something incredible and awful, and w-we formed a bond…"

Stan shook his head, almost imperceptibly. "Not here, Bill, okay?" he said, a slight but hard edge of pleading in his voice. "Just… not tonight. Please?"

And Bill, who has a hard fucking time backing off about this (Richie loves him but it's true), nodded and said, "Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, man."

Stan smiled a little and said, real sincerity in his voice, "I love you guys. I really do." And almost at that exact moment, Patty appeared, giggling and slipping her hand in his and tugging him off towards the dance floor. And Richie put on his best Old Man/Father Voice and said, "Our little Stan the Man is all grown up." 

And of course he did make a speech later. He's Trashmouth Tozier, even without his Theater degree. And Stan pretended to hate it, but Patty squealed after it was over, and Stan totally cried, and he said years later that it was the best night of his life. 

\---

They promise to find him. Over the phone to Patty, right there, they make their promises, Richie and Eddie and even Bev, though she's never spoken a word to Patty in her life. And then they go up into the room and fall into action. Eddie texts the others, quickly, and then calls the Bureau. It's late and there's probably nobody there, but they need a warrant to track Stan's phone, and Dr. Kaspbrak is their best shot at getting one. Their bosses prefer him to Richie. 

Richie, meanwhile, stays on the phone with Patty, and he tells her all of it. They agree that there's no reason to leave her out; she already knows a lot anyway. He fills in the pieces that Stan didn't tell her—big picture stuff, not shit that happened to Stan—and why they came back to Derry and what's happened since and everything with Bev. Patty takes it all in stride. Even talks to Bev on the phone for a few minutes. She wants to come up there, she says, but they talk her out of it, at least for the time being. "It's dangerous up here," Richie tells her. "You're a civilian and you're not involved in this. And Stan will fucking kill us if we put you in danger."

Patty laughs, maybe a little bitterly, maybe not. "I know, but I don't care," she says. "He's my _husband,_ Rich."

Eddie chimes in at this point, taking the phone and talking into it. "It's really safer if you don't get involved. You know about this, it goes so much higher than us. You could end up with a fucked up memory, too, or the government breathing down your neck. We don't even really like that the guys are coming up in the first place."

"Plus," Richie adds, "if he's not here, and they find him somewhere down there… you'd wanna be there, right?"

It takes a lot of convincing, but Patty agrees to stay—"For now," she says, so firmly that there is no room left for argument. Richie might have the energy to argue if he wasn't so worried himself. He can't really blame her for wanting to come. 

"I fucking hate pulling the Feds card," he mutters when they hang up, and then he turns to Eddie. "What did they say?"

"We can't fucking get anything out of them tonight," Eddie says. Nearly spits it. "They're saying it's not our case and it's not involved and we're too close to it and we shouldn't even be here in the first place. They refuse to try and track Stan's phone, and they're ordering us to return immediately."

"Fucking assholes," Richie bites out, resisting the urge to kick the dresser. He turns to Bev and says, voice shaking, "W-what do you think? Did they take him? The suited men, could they have taken him? And now they're fucking covering it up?"

Bev chews on a thumbnail, worry visible in her eyes. "I… I don't know," she says quietly. "It could be. It very well might be. It seems like their M.O., covering their tracks, although I'd question why they didn't come up with a better cover up than this. They might be trying to cover it up right now. But… I think there's the possibility that It could've taken her. Whatever… is here. Whatever Ms. Winterbarger saw." 

Eddie shudders a little, shutting his eyes. Richie chews at his lower lip. "You think… It could have done this? They could have done this? The aliens?"

"I don't know," says Bev. "I think it's possible." She runs her thumb along her palm, along the scar they all have. "I… I think he's okay," she adds quietly. "I think whoever, or whatever, took him did it because he wasn't going to come back. I think it's important that we're all here together."

Richie curses a little under his breath, looking down at his shoes. He can't stop wondering what would've happened if they'd told Stan sooner. If maybe they could've stopped this, somehow. 

He just keeps thinking that he can't stand to lose anyone else. Not again. They lost Georgie, and they lost Eddie and Ben when they were kids, and they lost Bev without even knowing it, and he can't stand to lose someone else. The risk of losing someone permanently. He can't stand it. But the longer they stay here, the more he worries that it might actually happen. Something he can't take back. Someone he can't find again. 

Eddie nudges him slightly. "They're here," he says. "They're downstairs. We… should go look for Stan."

"Yeah," Richie says. His voice comes out odd and husky, so he clears his throat. "Yeah. Let's go."

\---

Bill and Mike and Ben are clustered outside by the van, and they look up with some odd mix of relief and jittery fear when they approach. "Shit," Bill says, teeth clenched, and then he steps forward to hug Bev. "Beverly, I'm so sorry. I'm so—"

"It's okay, Bill. It's okay," Bev says, hugging him back. "You didn't know." 

She embraces Mike next, who murmurs, "It's really good to see you, Bev." And then Ben. The two of them hug for a long time. Bev says something like, "I'm so sorry I lied to you,” and Ben says, "Jesus Christ, Bev, no, don't be sorry. I'm… I'm just so glad you're okay." 

It's a lot to watch, so Eddie looks away. Looks to Bill and Mike, their faces full of worry and concern. "W-w-what happened?" Bill says, stumbling over his words like he hasn't done in years. 

They climb into the van and they tell the whole story. Everything Patty told them. It doesn't take long, but by the end, Bill has his head in his hands. Mike says, one hand over his mouth, "We have to find him."

Eddie nods, wordless, jaw locked with fear. He keeps thinking about everything he heard in that fucking bathroom—of all of it, but of Stan screaming, the same thing they'd heard on the radio. Right towards the end of it. It was Stan as a child, but he sounded so scared, and Eddie thinks it's just a memory, but he wonders—he wonders if something was trying to send a message, somehow. 

"I-I-I-if the suited men have him, w-w-w-w—," Bill starts and stops, mid-sentence, his face red with frustration. Eddie may have been reacquainted with the others for the briefest amount of time except for Bev, but he still knows that Bill hasn't stuttered like that in years. 

"We won't be able to find him," Bev finishes, gently. "At least not here, and not easily. They hide people well." She grimaces a little at that and avoids their eyes. 

"But if he's been abducted…" Mike says, trailing off mid-sentence. 

"As in alien-abducted? He'd probably be on a UFO," Richie snaps. He's tense, hair crazy like he's been pulling on it, glasses shoved up on top of his head. "That fits the fucking M.O."

"I think we can agree that this case isn't the normal abductees situation," says Mike. "At least I don't think. Patty thought he was coming here. If he came here, or he was brought here…"

"Then we might be able to find him here," Eddie says. 

They look at each other in the dark of the van. Bill says, "I c-c-can't think of a better idea."

"Where would he have gone?" Richie says huskily, pulling his tie loose. "In the fucking sewers? That's the one thing we all remember, right? We were looking for people in the sewers? The bodies came out of the sewers?"

"He's n-n-not _dead,_ " Bill snaps, his eyes flashing suddenly, and Eddie's throat tightens abruptly. He hadn't even considered the possibility of Stan being dead, but that's suddenly all he can think of. Stan in a murky pool of water— _greywater_ , his mind supplies automatically—glasses askew, face smeared with blood in a circular line… 

He shakes his head hard and rests it against the window, trying to compose himself. Stan's _not_ dead. He can't be dead.

He meets Bev's eyes across the dim van and sees a similar fear there, a similar worry. Bev yanks her eyes away, her knees knocking against Ben's, so quickly that Eddie wonders if she knows something he doesn't. 

"I didn't mean…" Richie says, his voice hollow with horror. "I didn't mean… Of course he's not fucking _dead_. I just… we don't remember, right? That's the only place I ever remember looking back in the day, in the fucking sewers. Where else are we supposed to go?"

"What about the Barrens?" Mike offers quietly. "Or the clubhouse? What about Stan's old house, or the synagogue?"

"They didn't live there, did they? The aliens or whatever? The monster?" Richie's eyes jerk around, meeting Eddie's for a second, and then moving away. "Bev?" 

"If Stan came here on his own—not because he wanted to, but because someone was making him," Ben says evenly, "then I think it makes sense to look in the places that he would go back to. Like Mike suggested."

"That does make sense," Eddie says, maybe selfishly—it's probably horrible of him to think this way, but he doesn't want to go down to the sewers. Not at night, maybe not at all. And he doesn't want to think of Stan down there, being _alone_ down there. Doesn't want to see that image again, of Stan dead down there, even if he imagined it. 

And what Ben is saying makes sense, anyways. If Stan really left that note, coerced or not, it probably means he had some willpower left. Maybe. 

Eddie doesn't want to consider what it means if he didn't. Yes, it's odd for Stan to leave Patty without a word, and it's odd for him to show an interest in Derry at all—he's been strictly against it since Eddie came back, and even longer according to the others. But maybe he was just scared. Maybe he knew he had to come back. Maybe he's just fine, and he's poking around one of their old haunts looking for answers, looking for monsters. 

The first time Eddie ever met Stanley Uris was on the first day of kindergarten. They'd stacked blocks together on the rug, constructing a teetering tower that Richie immediately interrupted and pretended he was going to knock down. (He knew Stan because they always got stuck together because of their last names: _T_ and _U_.) Stan was maybe the calmest kindergartner Eddie had seen until he wasn't, and he already knew way more about birds than any of the rest of them, and Eddie hadn't been able to believe that he'd known so much when he pointed out a mockingbird. 

The second time he'd met him—because it _felt_ like a second meeting, that's how momentous it was—happened after his first case with Richie. They'd talked on the video call, that first night, but it didn't feel real, and then he and Richie went to Oregon on their first case (Richie's favorite case to recap—they'd experienced some missing time, and he'd immediately called the others to tell them every detail, and for the next year or so, he was constantly saying, "Hey, Eds, you remember when we lost nine minutes?"), and when they got back, Stan and Patty were there. 

Eddie had been immediately stunned, walking into the cluttered apartment with all the locks on the door behind Richie and seeing Stan there, sitting with his wife at the kitchen table flipping through one of the magazines. It was Stanley Uris, all grown up, as jarring as everyone else that he had met recently. "We wanted to see you," he said, stepping forward to shake Eddie's hand. "It's been so long, and it was so—so abrupt, the way you left. We… we were worried." He turned a little red then, Eddie suspected because he didn't want to discuss that topic. "It's really good to see you, Eddie, I—can I hug you?" 

"Yeah, of course, of course," Eddie said, still stunned, and they embraced right there in the doorway. 

That was the first time that he'd met Patty, who he'd liked instantly, and the seven of them—eight, once Audra showed up—had sat up half the night talking. At one point, Bill had joked that he was glad the Bureau had assigned Eddie to spy on Richie, because they never got to fucking see Stan otherwise, and Stan stubbornly pointed out that they came up a lot for holidays and in the summer, and that the rest of them could come down to Georgia once in a while. And then Richie said something about how Stan and Patty had better come visit more often, because Eddie was back, and would probably stick around if this last case hadn't scared him off, and it was the first time the Loser's Club had all been together since they were kids, so Stan had better not fuck it up. It wasn't true, because of Bev, and remembering that makes Eddie feel guilty, but they'd believed it at the time. And Eddie remembers thinking that he was glad to have come back—not for the first time, considering the week he'd just spent in Oregon with Richie. (He was exhausted as shit and also a little freaked out, and he'd never tell Richie this, but in the airport before the flight home, he'd decided that he would avoid a transfer like the plague.) But it was maybe the time that felt most significant, with all of them there together: the fact that Eddie was back, and he remembered everybody, and they were together again. He didn't want to lose this again, he remembers thinking. Not again. 

He and Stan have kept up a pretty significant friendship since then: talking or emailing frequently, swapping stories about his life in Georgia, or about the X-Files they work, or general stuff that's happened. Stan and Patty usually opt to stay with Eddie when they come and visit, since Audra and Bill have a ridiculously tiny place (writer and small-scale actress salary), and Richie, Mike, and Ben live in a cramped den of chaos. (Stan's words, actually.) They've kept in touch, even if they never feel as close as Eddie's gotten to the others, considering that Stan lives so far away. (Everyone's been working on Stan and Patty to try and get them to move up to Virginia or Maryland since before Eddie came back, apparently. Eddie thinks that they might actually do it if it wasn't for the suited men, the conspiracy scaring Stan so bad.) But this memory is the one that Eddie usually returns to with Stan, the first one of them as adults. Stan hugged him goodbye when they left a couple days later and said he was glad Eddie was back, and that he hoped he stuck around. "We've missed you a lot, Eds," he said. "I wished that you and Ben could've been there when I got married—ask the others, they'll back me up." 

After that, Eddie hadn't seen Stan as often, but he did see him, he was always around in some form or another. He usually took Eddie's side in debates over cases (because all their cases were fucking unhinged, and good old believers Bill and Mike usually backed Richie up unless it was just balls to the walls crazy). They came up for holidays. The rest of them drove down and visited when Eddie and Richie could get time off work. (Which wasn't often. "Why the hell did I decide to work for the government?" Richie often said.) They were the Loser's Club, even if they were fractured, and Stan will always be a part of that. That's just the way it is. 

It's still so jarring to look around and remember that he's missing. It's jarring, and it's terrifying, and Eddie's mind keeps racing in unexpected ways, and the best thing he can say to all of this is that it's completely normal for the mind to come up with every scenario possible to convince itself that everything is going to be all right. (Richie may have the Psychology degree to hold over Eddie's head, but Eddie _is_ a doctor. Even if Richie claims he has horrible people skills because all his patients are dead.) That's why he keeps imagining these scenarios in which all of this is a misunderstanding and they find Stan perfectly okay tonight. It's a natural response in the mind, emotionally. Eddie knows cases like this because he's investigated them a hundred times, but he also knows himself, and he can't bear to imagine Stan dead, or them being too late. It's too much. So he keeps coming up with this idyllic shit wherein they find Stan tonight, at one of the places Mike mentioned. That looking there is the best possible thing to do while he waits for their bosses to get their heads out of their asses and help them. 

It doesn't seem very likely, but Eddie wants to believe that it's true. Maybe because the alternatives scare him so much.

\---

The others agree to looking for Stan in familiar places, so that's what they do: buckle themselves into Mike's cluttered van and drive around Derry looking for Stan. (They all use the van a little, except for Eddie, but it's Mike's weapon of choice; he keeps books in there, there's still library books on everything from chemistry to the occult, with some of Bill's giant novels and several dozen issues of _The Lone Gunmen_ to boot.) It's getting later, the sun sinking low in the sky, but it's still light out, and they use the advantage to poke around every corner of the town where they think Stan might go. 

The town still seems normal. Sleepy but not asleep yet, staying awake with the late summer sun. The lights of the festival are visible from the windows of the van. There's a baseball game, and they can hear the cheers of people from the road. At one point, Mike says, "It hasn't changed," in a trembling, husky voice, and in a way, it really hasn't. 

They start in the old neighborhoods, the streets where Bill and Richie and Eddie and Stan grew up, close enough that they could run back and forth between each other's houses, just a few blocks away. It's not like they're expecting Stan to just be walking down the street—although, Eddie thinks, maybe foolishly, it's not impossible—but more about seeing if any of the houses still have people living in them, or if they're empty and might be a place where Stan could've gone. Their main target is Stan's house, however, and it's a lost cause; the house where Stan grew up has been torn down. They drive around the block four times to be sure, but it's definitely not there; an apartment complex is there instead. Richie's and Bill's old houses are still there, albeit with new families—there's a curly-headed kid skateboarding in Bill's driveway—but Eddie's doesn't look like it's been inhabited since they moved. It's old and rundown, roof shingles and boards hanging loose, windows caved in, plants overgrown all over the place. It looks hollow, like nothing ever lived there, and the sight of it makes Eddie's stomach turn for reasons he can't place. He remembers their packed car in the driveway, the trunk half-open with stuff, the toys and books and comics his mom said they didn't have room in the car for, but Eddie knew it was really just because she hated that his friends gave him a lot of that stuff; he remembers her hand stern on his shoulder, his arm throbbing beneath the cast, pressing his face to the car windows and watching the houses go by and thinking that he must be crazy not to want to go. Begging his mom to stop and let him say goodbye. Looking at it now, he thinks, involuntarily, _It looks like Neibolt,_ and shudders without knowing why. He doesn't want to go in there. 

They go to the synagogue next. They all remember Stan spending a good portion of his summer there practicing for his bar mitzvah, and Bill insists he remember Stan talking about seeing something there. "In his dad's office," he says. "T-t-there's something there." The Urises aren't here anymore, but it makes as much sense as any of the other places they've looked. 

The parking lot is empty except for one or two cars, and the sky is streaked with gold and pink on the horizon, but the door opens when Richie tries it. "This is better than breaking in, isn't it, Eds," he says dryly, badge reliably in hand. (They've broken into plenty of places.) "Let's find Stan."

Stan isn't there. The six of them walk through the sanctuary and poke around in the surrounding hallways, and find nothing. Ben and Mike open closets, Bev checks bathrooms. Bill paces around the front of the sanctuary, rubbing his mouth worriedly. "I d-didn't come to his bar mitzvah," he says, his voice full of anguish. "I told him I'd come. Wh-wh-why didn't I come?"

Eddie realizes suddenly that he didn't come either. To the bar mitzvah or to Stan's birthday. They had promised, before summer even started, all three of them; he and Richie were working on a cover story for his mom. He was saving up for a new bird guide for Stan. Bill was gonna buy him new binoculars. But he doesn't think he went. He doesn't remember going. He thinks maybe his mom had grounded him. 

"I went," Richie says softly. He has his flashlight out, and he moves it over the podium at the front. "I remember. Stan gave a huge speech and cussed in front of everyone. It was fucking awesome." He sighs, shoving his glasses up to rub at his eyes, and calls, "Stanley?" His voice echoes off the walls. It seems futile, but Eddie calls, too. He isn't sure what else to do. 

"Can I help you?" 

The three of them turn to see a man walking towards them, eyes uncertain. Eddie holds up his badge. "I'm sorry. We're with the FBI, we're looking for a friend of ours. His father was the rabbi here when we were kids, and we… thought he might've come back."

The excuse is pathetic but the man just nods. "I haven't seen anyone besides staff today," he says. 

"No Stanley Uris?" Richie asks, stepping up beside Eddie. "Tall guy, glasses, wears some lame fucking sweater vests?"

The man shakes his head. Behind them, Bill makes a low noise of frustration in his throat. "Thank you," Eddie says, and starts for the door. His nerves are tight, his stomach knotted, but he doesn't have the energy to piss this guy off. Stan isn't here.

On the way out, they find Mike standing in front of an ajar office door. He turns towards them and motions at a painting before following them out. Eddie recognizes the painting, and it sends fear shooting up his spine, makes his mouth go dry. He recognizes it immediately. One of the faces the monster took. He remembers it somewhere dark, hunched over Stanley. It makes him shudder all over, the sight of it. 

It's gone dark by the time they leave. The six of them regroup in the back of the van, clustering in a circle. Ben picks up a heavy old copy of _A History of Old Derry_ and flips through it with a sigh. Far off, they can hear sirens. 

"What about the clubhouse?" Mike offers. "We could look there."

"We were just there this morning," Eddie says. "If Stan's there, he would've had to get there just today."

"Wh-what about the school?" Bill offers. "Or the park?"

"School's closed. We really would have to break in. And Eds-o has aneurysms when we break in places."

"Because it's _illegal_ , Richie, Jesus."

"What do you think, Bev?" Richie says abruptly. They look towards her, shifting next to Ben. Richie adds, "You… you remember some stuff we might not, and we haven't had a chance to compare memories yet… what do you think?"

Bev clears her throat and says, "What about the Standpipe?"

Bill nods eagerly, his spine straightening. "The Standp-p-pipe, yeah, th-that's where he used to go birdwatching. Remember?"

"Yeah," Eddie says, remembering. "We used to ride bikes down that hill beside it."

"Shit, yeah. The No-Brakes Chicken Game. I fucking ate concrete every time we did that," Richie says fondly. 

"He saw something there, too," Bev says. "I remember him talking about it. The things we were all seeing that summer… one of the places Stan saw something was the Standpipe." 

A sudden shocked chill shoots up Eddie's spine and he bites back a shudder. The rest of them look grim at the proposition, but determined; they need to do this. They have to find Stan. He tells himself that he and Richie have gone to much, more worse places than the Standpipe—they take little kids there, for fuck's sake. He and Richie have slept in haunted houses and walked through murder sites and done a million bullshit horror movie things. 

But this is worse. Eddie knows it is worse. 

"Okay," Bill says. "Okay, we'll g-g-go to the Standpipe."

Ben climbs up in the front seat and turns on the car. Eddie and Richie exchange a tense glimpse as they pull away from the curb. 

\---

When Eddie was a kid, he used to think the Standpipe was a lighthouse. He's not sure why, aside from the fact that it's tall and people climb it. They visited it like every other year in school, for the first time in the first grade; Eddie remembers that his mom sent a note forbidding him from climbing to the top because of his asthma. He remembers Belch Huggins wandered over when he was sitting outside and told him about all the kids who drowned in the water tank, and how if you listened real hard, you could hear the screams, and the sounds of the children pounding on the sides. He'd had nightmares for a week. 

Now, in the dark, it looks more ominous than it ever did when they were kids. A huge black shape looming over them. People who came out here at night when they were kids used to talk about seeing shapes up on the observation deck, or hearing footsteps on the stairs. Typical ghost stories, Eddie thinks almost automatically, in the same tone of voice he uses when he and Richie bicker about cases. He wishes they were on a normal case. At least they're here with the others. Safety in numbers. He shines his flashlight up at the top of the Standpipe and sees nothing. No shapes. No Stan. 

"Maybe we should split up," Mike offers at the side of the van. They're gathering their things: the flashlights, the burner phones, Richie and Eddie's guns. Richie tosses Eddie his badge and makes a face at him. 

Eddie suppresses the urge to make a face right back. "I dunno if that's a good idea," he says. 

"There's six of us, and one Standpipe. There can't be that much to cover," Mike offers. "Some of us could go look in the woods nearby, make sure Stan isn't there."

"I l-l-like that idea," Bill says. "Cover more ground."

"Me too," says Bev. "Although I don't think anyone should go off alone."

Richie sighs, yanking his hands through his hair dramatically. "Fine, fine. Although I want it to be known that if Bill hadn't bailed on the FBI, there would be more G-men to be scared." He bumps Eddie's shoulder with his. "I hate to lose ya, Eds, but as the only ones with guns…"

"Yeah, yeah, you're right," Eddie says, although a small part of him protests. He loves the others, but he and Richie have this strange rhythm, this routine… it feels odd to do this without Richie watching his back. 

The response, of course, is ridiculous, so he doesn't say anything. They'll be fine split up. They have the others, and Richie worked alone for two years before they got partnered up. Not to mention all the time they've been split up on cases. They'll be fine. 

"R-Richie and I can take the Standpipe," Bill says. 

"The rest of us could split up in the woods, search a larger area that way," says Bev. "Two and two."

"You'd be sparing yourself the ultimate protection of Agent Spaghetti," says Richie, reaching over to mess up Eddie's hair. Eddie shoves his hand away. 

"I've got a knife," Bev says. "And we don't have to go far."

"Sounds good to me," Ben says. 

So Eddie heads down for the dark treeline with Mike, Ben, and Bev. Ben and Bev sort of separate out on their own, flashlight beams slicing across the dark horizon, so Eddie sticks with Mike. "It's really weird being back here," Mike says as they enter the woods, flicking his own flashlight on. 

"No fucking kidding," says Eddie. "It must be even weirder for you guys—you've had no time to adjust."

"It still feels like home, in a way," says Mike. "I stayed here longer than anyone. Before my grandfather passed, I thought I might never leave. It doesn't feel like I've been away that long, but now that I'm back…" He grimaces. "I don't know. It's weird as shit. Being back makes me… uneasy for some reason."

Eddie knows exactly what he means, but he doesn't say anything. He thinks Mike probably already knows, that they all feel the same way. Coming back is a lot. It weighs heavy. 

They walk in silence for a moment, looking for footsteps on the ground, weaving their way through the trees. These are the woods that go into the quarry and the Barrens, the woods that the Kenduskeag flows through, the woods that took Patrick Hockstetter and Jerry Bellwood. The woods they played in their whole childhood. Eddie can remember the first time all of them hid down here in these woods—can remember it clearly for the first time, now that he remembers Bev. It's coming back just now. 

"Mike," he says, mostly to make conversation, but also out of curiosity. "Do you remember the day we were down here looking for Georgie and the suited men almost found us?"

There's unfamiliarity on Mike's face, just before the memory slots into place. Eddie knows that look; he's been on the other side of it a hundred times since he remembered. "Holy shit," he says softly. "I… I think I just did. That was a strange fucking day."

Eddie remembers. He and Richie and Bill and Stan had done it plenty before the others, but Ben and Bev and Mike hadn't known everything all at once. He remembers that they all knew something was out there—the aliens or monster or whatever, it's blurry but he remembers all of them talking about it, Ben and Mike telling the history, all of it. But they didn't know about the suited men. They hadn't known until that day out in the Barrens, all of them lumbering around the woods looking for the kids (that was how they spent the summer, as well as any of them can remember, sandwiching searching for Georgie and Betty and Ed Corcoran between trips to the quarry or the clubhouse) when the suited men came. Eddie remembers: he and Richie and Ben were poking at some kind of little dirt cavern under an overhang, and Bev and Bill were up in a tree or something, when Stan and Mike ran up, Stan in a panic, face ghost-white. _Bill,_ he'd gasped, looking around in a panic, _Bill, Bill, they're here. The suited men are here._

Mike had looked confused as shit, and Ben and Bev looked about the same, but Bill had sprung right into action, shuffling them all into the little cavern-dirt-hole-thing. It was cramped and dirty, Eddie all shoved up between Richie and Mike and hidden somewhere behind Ben, but they all squeezed in and Bill pulled some grass and leaves and roots overtop to hide them. And they'd lain there in a panic while the suited men tramped around calling, _Kids! We know you're here. Why don't you come on out? We'd like to talk to you again. Don't force us to call your parents._ Eddie had to shove a hand over his mouth to stave off an asthma attack (Richie helped, crawled half on top of him and put his hand on top of Eddie's and whispered _Don't go full teakettle, Eds, just breathe easy, okay_ ), and Stan had whispered to the others, _Don't go out, don't let them know we're here, they're not nice, they're just pretending._

"That was when Bill explained everything to us," Mike says out loud. "That day. After they left."

"He should've told you guys sooner," Eddie says with a little self-deprecating laugh. "You didn't know what you were getting into."

"I could've left after that," Mike says, grinning slightly. "I didn't want to."

"We must've sounded nuts," says Eddie. "I mean, you guys hadn't seen very much of this, and we couldn't have known then, I don't think… We don't fucking remember, but I assume… we didn't know what they could do." He shrugs. "I don't know that I would've taken Bill seriously if I hadn't been there when they threatened the Denbroughs."

"I just had a feeling that day," says Mike. "I think I just instinctively knew that you guys weren't full of it. I hadn't read a lot of my dad's research at the time, but I dug in years later, and I found out my dad had similar suspicions. He remembered the previous cycle, with the Black Spot, and how people covered it up… which certainly wasn't fucking abnormal, considering. But it matched all the other things that got covered up, different deaths and disappearances… I think my dad figured out the truth, and I think I absorbed some of it. I trusted what you were saying." He shrugs, moving his flashlight across the treeline. "I don't know. The threat of our parents getting involved was bad enough to make us trust them. Bev's dad…" 

Eddie winces, thinking of Bev's shitty father, thinking of what actually happened when they told his mother. "You're right," he says. "Anyways, I'm glad you guys believed us. You stuck around."

"We were all in. Ben was on it—he showed us the clubhouse a couple weeks later," Mike says fondly, smiling. Eddie remembers: the way he'd nervously motioned at it, eyes bright, and said, _It's ours. A clubhouse, or… a hideout. If we need it._ He'd looked at Bill and said, _It's really hard to find if you don't know where it is._ And Bill had smiled, clapped Ben on the shoulder and told him it was great, the perfect hiding spot. 

"It was like the early version of the Gunmen headquarters hideout apartment thingy you guys have going on there," Eddie says. "Although I think it was cleaner."

Mike laughs at that. "You're still welcome to move in, you know. And not just on the Eddie Couch."

Eddie doesn't know where he'd sleep except in Richie's room—the thought instantly makes his neck go red and hot. "Thanks, Mikey. I know you guys are just scheming to get help on the rent, though."

"We've tried to get Stan and Patty to move in, too. You aren't special," Mike jokes. Eddie smiles a little, but they both fall silent at the mention of Stan. Worry is still twisting in his stomach; it doesn't feel right, all of them being here without him. 

"Do you think he's okay, Eds?" Mike asks, his voice husky with worry. 

Eddie swallows, dragging a hand over his mouth. "I don't know, Mikey," he says. "I hope so. I really hope so."

They go quiet again, flashlight beams bouncing off the tree. When they speak again, it's to call Stan's name, echoing Ben and Bev's voices further in the dark woods. 

\---

Looking in the woods feels useless, Ben thinks, but it's really all they can do. They have no clear leads, restricted by Richie's and Eddie's prick fucking bosses. (Ben's never met them—although he feels like he knows the one that Richie refers to as "Skinman"—but considering the circumstances, he'll agree that they're pricks.) He thinks that if this doesn't work, he and Mike can try hacking to track Stan somehow. Not something they usually do—the government does enough of that on their own—but it seems like the circumstances call for it. 

He and Bev tramp through the woods, flashlights in hand, calling Stan's name for long moments. The woods are dark and looming, eerie, and Ben is filled with worry for Stan, but he keeps returning to Bev. It feels impossible to do anything otherwise. This has all happened so fast, realizing that she'd found the others and was safe, and then remembering her, and meeting her again in all this chaos. It's been six years, but he hasn't been able to shake the memory of her, and now it's obvious why. All this time, and he hadn't known… They'd taken her away and they'd just let them, and then they had _erased_ her, and he hadn't been able to remember or to help her… It makes him nearly sick to remember it. Ben has been getting flashes of memory all day, and he thinks he can remember when they took Bev, and he wishes he didn't. It was so fucking useless; all he could do was scream and punch and do absolutely nothing to _really_ help. He could throw a rock and hit Henry Bowers when he shouted rude things at Bev, but he couldn't save her from being kidnapped by the suited men. 

He beat on the door to that room after they took her, til his knuckles were bruised and scraped bloody. He remembers waking up in his own bedroom with aching hands and not knowing why. He thought he loved her back then—a secret he kept to himself, that he loved Beverly Marsh—and he couldn't do a thing to save her. 

When she left six years ago, it felt like that, without Ben even realizing what it was. He hadn't remembered but he knew it was significant. They'd been on the road for a couple weeks and they were somewhere in Arizona when Bev had said, _I can't do this. I have to go. I can't just stay here and put you in danger. They’ll leave you alone if I leave._ They'd almost got caught the night before, had to climb out a hotel window in the middle of the night. He hadn't understood why she wouldn't let him go with her, but she just kept insisting that she couldn't do this to him. "I can't put you in danger, Ben. I can't. This isn't your life."

He let her go because he didn't want to push her. He couldn't force her to stay with him, or follow her when she left. He tried to give her money and she wouldn't take it. He made her promise to call if she needed anything, anything at all. He asked—selfishly, but as gently as he could—if she'd get back in touch in a couple months or so, just to let him know she was safe. She said she would, although the call never came. She hugged him goodbye when they split, outside a used car place, and thanked him profusely, and told him she'd miss him. There was something in her eyes Ben hadn't understood until today. He'd wanted to kiss her, or ask her not to go. He hadn't known who she was. And until today, he didn't realize what the low ache in his stomach was for. He was remembering the day that she'd been taken away. 

Except it was different, that time. She'd chosen to go. She'd been safer then. And she's stayed safe—he hopes—all this time. She's here now. 

"Beverly?" he says suddenly, gently. He moves his flashlight over the ground, looking for tracks in the dirt and mud. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course," Bev says immediately, turning towards him. There's guilt in her voice—she's apologized about a dozen times about not telling Ben who she was six years ago. Ben's told her she has nothing to apologize for, because she doesn't. 

Ben clears his throat uncomfortably. "Have you… been okay, all these years?" he asks. "After you left, I was worried that they might catch up to you…"

"Oh," Bev says, tucking hair behind her ears. "Oh, no, they didn't catch up to me. I've been okay. In and out of conspiracy circles, things like that. I stayed off the grid." She shrugs, grins a little. "You and Mike and Bill are pretty famous in those circles, you know. Under your assumed identities, of course."

"Oh, of course," Ben says, laughing a little. "Mike and Bill picked the name. They had a lot of it set up before I got there… I helped out with the publishing stuff, mostly."

"Oh, come on," Bev says, nudging him. "You're not one of the writers? Mr. January Embers?"

Ben blushes all over like he's thirteen again. He thinks he kind of remembered the poem all these years, but not who he wrote it for; he can't believe he forgot it. He can't believe he didn't piece things together sooner. One night when he and Bev were briefly running, there was only one bed at the hotel, and they'd jammed in the bed and he'd woken up with her hair in his face and thought, half asleep, _January embers._ He should've recognized it immediately. He held onto the yearbook page she’d signed for the whole year before his mom had gotten fired, without knowing why, and then he'd lost it in the move. He wonders if it was a purposeful loss. Another erasure of Beverly Marsh. 

"Oh, come on," he says sheepishly, unsure of what else to say. 

Bev smiles. "I really loved that poem, Ben. It meant a lot to me." She scuffs her foot over the ground, flashlight slicing through the dark. "I still have it, actually."

Ben stumbles a little in place, feeling like he's been hit in the gut, and wonders if she noticed. "R-really?" he half-stammers. He thinks of that yearbook page, folded up on the windowsill beside his bed, the way he'd held it to his chest some nights. He hadn't even known who Beverly Marsh was, and yet he couldn't let it go. And she kept his poem, his postcard?

"Sure. When I came back to Derry, I broke into my dad's place. He hadn't gotten rid of my stuff. I found the postcard, and I taped it back up, and I took it with me." She scuffs one foot over the ground, sending stones rolling over the dirt, not meeting his eyes. “I stole some stuff from the clubhouse, too,” she adds, sheepishly. “I started sleeping there while I was back here, and I… I wanted some stuff to remember you guys with. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” Ben says automatically, because he doesn’t, and by then, the clubhouse wasn’t even his anymore. He was gone before Beverly made it back to Derry. He wonders if he would have recognized her if he had been here when she came back, and then he pushes that line of thinking away. He’s still reeling over the fact that she’s kept the postcard all these years, that she remembered that he wrote it. “That stuff was yours as much as the rest of ours.” 

She keeps apologizing for lying to him six years ago, but Ben doesn’t think she lied, not really. She told a lot of the truth. She told him that her mother died when she was young, and that her father was an asshole (which he certainly fucking was), and that the government essentially kidnapped her by pretending to be CPS, and that she escaped and hid out for a few years and then spent the rest of her childhood with her aunt. She told him that she was from Maine. She gave him her full name. She just left out the part that they used to know each other. And as much as a part of Ben wishes that she had told him—he thinks that he would’ve believed her; and a small part of him wonders what would have happened if he had known her, and she’d come back to DC with him to meet the others, if they’d all been together all this time—he understands _why_ she didn’t tell him. With everything that she’s been through, he can’t blame her. After none of them recognized her. After years of not knowing who she could trust. She keeps apologizing, but he can’t blame her at all. Not really. 

They fall back into calling for Stan, flashlights moving through the trees. Far off, they can hear Eddie and Mike doing the same thing. The quiet leaves room for Ben’s mind to shift from Bev to Stan, for the fear that he began feeling when Eddie texted them a few hours ago. It feels like years ago. He’d been driving when Mike read the text out loud, and it shook him so bad that he jerked the wheel a little too hard, hands shaking. 

It feels impossible that Stan could’ve gone missing. As much as his absence has been noticeable over the years, they’ve gotten used to him not being involved in this. Stan’s never shown any interest over the years, and he and Patty call and write and visit enough that it doesn’t really feel like he’s gone. Maybe it’s silly, but a part of Ben has always felt like Stan was the safest out of all of them, down there in Georgia with Patty, living a happy life. Ben had been a little bit against keeping Stan out of the loop, but it _had_ made sense, when Bill and Mike had suggested it; he wasn’t interested, he’d told them that before, and they knew telling him would probably just lead to an argument. And he was safe in Georgia. Ben had really thought he was safe in Georgia. 

Remembering this makes guilt rise in his throat, hot like bile, and he shouts Stan’s name a little louder, like that’s going to help anything. He isn’t even sure that Stan is down in these woods—none of them are. Bill and Richie might be having more luck with the Standpipe, but Ben kind of doubts that, too. The way he sees it, there are two possibilities: that the suited men have Stan, or that the aliens, or the monster, or whatever it is, has Stan. And whichever the case, he knows that means that Stan probably isn’t sitting down in these woods, waiting to be found. (He won’t let himself entertain the third possibility—that Stan is dead, that they’re too late. He won’t.) 

They call for Stan for a few more minutes. At one point, Bev’s voice rises shrilly and loudly with fear, shouting, “STANLEY!” and Ben suddenly trips. Not out of startledness, he doesn’t think—there is something in his path, and he steps forward and stumbles over something solid. He bumps into Bev as he tries to regain his balance, sending her stumbling forward a little herself. “Sorry,” he gasps out as Bev catches herself on a tree, and reaches out with his free hand to steady her. 

“It’s okay,” Bev says, leaning against the tree with one hand. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“I tripped over something.” Ben stands up straight and shines his flashlight at the ground, expecting to see a rock or a branch or something. 

Instead, he finds Easter eggs, nestled in the pine needles, months too late. Eggs whose colors have gone muted and dull, almost blackened. Eggs with light smoke rising from them, accompanied by the smell of burning.

Ben stumbles back, hand shaking so hard he almost drops the flashlight, a Pavlovian response. He isn’t sure why, but he’s sure when he sees them that they mean something bad. His throat closes automatically, eyes glued to the faded eggs, and his voice rasps as he says, “Bev…”

"Oh, _fuck_ ," Bev hisses suddenly, and she yanks her hand away from the tree trunk as Ben turns towards her and holds it out between them. Ben shines his flashlight on it and has to hold back an audible gasp when he sees it. Her palm is coated in bright red blood. 

“Shit, Bev, are you hurt?” Ben’s hand shoots out to hers, to look for the injury, but he finds nothing under the layer of blood, still wet and seeping through her fingers. There is so much of it, and he can’t understand where it could have come from, there’s too much for it to be a scrape or a small cut.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, it’s…” Bev touches her palm and her fingers come away wet; she looks wildly between her hand and the tree. “It was already there,” she says slowly, numbly. “It came from the tree.”

Ben jerks the flashlight between the smoking eggs and the tree, blood shining on its bark. The woods have gone suddenly cold, colder than any summer night even in Maine; a breeze whistles through the trees, resembling a human voice. He’s shivering, his heart pounding hard. 

“This happened before,” Bev says, her voice low. “When I was a kid, this happened before. Blood came from the sink.”

Ben remembers that. Remembers helping her clean it, scrubbing blood that was somehow still dry from the floor and the tub and the windows… He thinks he remembers smoking eggs on the library carpet. “Bev,” he whispers, her hand still in his. “Bev, I think we should…”

The wind howls louder. There’s a gurgling sound, and in the yellow circle of Ben’s flashlight, he sees blood seeping out of the tree, from between the bark, and pooling on their shoes. It’s leaking through his sneakers, coating the muddy forest floor. Bev gasps and stumbles away, her hand turning to grasp Ben’s, her flashlight dropping to the ground. It lands in the growing pool of blood, casting an eerie glow over the deep crimson, and rolls through sticky pine needles towards the eggs. The smoke is still rising and Ben somehow can’t run, can only lace his fingers through Bev’s and watch sparks rise from the eggs. He can smell the smoke in the air, the smell like burning grass, and meat… He was reading about the Ironworks explosion in the library, the first day he saw… whatever is in this town. It exploded during an Easter egg hunt. There was something in the basement. 

The eggs spark and spark, and then catch fire, flames rising from the ground abruptly. Ben yelps, and the instinct snaps into place, to run. He and Bev turn and run away from the rising flames, hands still tangled together. 

Behind them, the flames are rising higher—Ben can see the light bouncing off of the trees—growing bigger faster than any flame should, the smell of burning leaves and pine needles filling the woods. He thinks of being in Derry Middle School as a kid, of a fire in the classroom. Somewhere in the trees, Ben can hear the faint sound of laughter. “ _January embers_ ,” a deep, mocking voice whispers in his ear, before bursting into laughter again. Ben bites back a shudder and runs faster.

When they finally skid to a stop, Bev breathing hard, their hands pressed together, it’s because the woods are dark. The smell of smoke and burning shrubbery is gone, and so are the flames. The woods are dark again.

Fingers quivering, Ben shines his flashlight at the space where they just were. Almost as soon as he lifts it, it flickers out, plunging them into darkness.

Deeper in the woods, there is the sound of Eddie and Mike shouting in fear.

\---

There aren’t many places to hide in the Standpipe. Bill should know—he’s been here a lot. Aside from field trips in school, and hanging out with the guys on the outside, he used to sneak in a lot around age ten. He went through a phase where he was very obsessed with abandoned buildings, and the Standpipe seemed to qualify, so he’d sneak in with Eddie, Richie, and Stan when he could talk them into it, or alone when he couldn’t. He’d brought Georgie along one time, even, and they’d raced up and down the stairs and tried to peek into the water tank, until Georgie had gotten freaked out about the stories of the kids drowning there, and they’d argued for about ten minutes over whether or not they should leave.

Being back, Bill can’t blame him for being scared. It’s eerie at night, the huge water tank looming, the whole place bathed in shadows that their flashlights don’t do much to chase away. He and Richie walk the spiral staircase most of the way up before stopping on one of the decks. Bill’s breathing a little hard, and leans against one of the railings. “J-j-jesus Christ,” he says, and flinches at the old stutter. He hasn’t stuttered like this in years. “How do you and Eddie d-do this every day?”

“We don’t climb that many staircases, Big Bill,” Richie says, his tone grim under the jokey sarcasm. “Haven’t investigated any haunted lighthouses yet. Ain’t the Hardy Boys.”

“R-r-right.” Bill sighs, wiping sweat from his forehead. He leans over the railing and looks down at the ground. There are spots underneath the stairs where they haven’t looked yet, hidden under platforms and in crevices. “Stan?” he calls, shining the flashlight down at the bottom, and finds nothing. No answer. Shadowy spots where his beam can’t reach. “Stan!”

“Do you really think he’s in here, man?” 

Bill turns towards Richie, standing on the other side of the landing. He’s staring down at his badge, in the palm of his hand, but he looks up at Bill, and Bill sees something layered under there. Something like resentment. “Do you really think he’s here?” he says again.

Bill swallows hard and resists the urge to look away. Doesn’t want to see it if there is resentment. He’s caught between guilt and the opposite of that with Richie—guilt over bringing Richie this far over something that was never his fight, and feelings of a lack of accountability for Richie following him this far. He told Richie many times over the years that he didn’t need to feel obligated to keep following him, that he could leave any time he wanted to. Bill has an odd memory of the summer of 1989 of thinking he hated Richie, of resenting Richie instead of the other way around, and he isn’t sure where it came from, to the point where he doubts the memory. It’s been just him and Richie for the longest time, in the years between Stan bowing out and going to a different college and Mike joining them down in Virginia. He couldn’t believe that Richie stayed with him all this time. Since then, they’ve kind of headed to opposite corners of this search—Bill writing the magazine and researching with Ben and Mike, and Richie working the X-Files with Eddie—but he always kind of goes back to that moment where it was just the two of them looking. And now he’s caught in worrying that Richie resents him, for bringing them back, and for Stan… 

Bill feels guilty for not telling Stan that they were coming, for not checking in before they left. Richie is right, that they should’ve told Stan right away; Ben said something like that, too. They should’ve gone down to Georgia and talked to him in person, convinced him to come along, or at least told him to be on guard… but they didn’t, and they left him, and now he’s missing, and maybe it is Bill’s fault. Maybe it is. He’s the one who brought Stan into this in the first place. It _is_ his fault, actually, because he should’ve looked out for Stan, should’ve protected him, the way he should’ve protected Bev—this is Bev all over again, because he let them take Bev when they were kids, he just sat there and _let them,_ and then he didn’t go after her, he couldn’t even fucking remember her when she came back looking for him. He’ll fall on the knife. It’s his fault. 

But hints of resentment from Richie still sting all over. 

“I don’t kn-kn-know,” he says out loud, because he doesn’t know what else to do. They don’t remember enough to look anywhere else. If the aliens or the monster have a hideout, they don’t know where it is. If there is some piece missing from this puzzle, they haven’t found it yet. Bill took over driving after they heard about Stan, kicking it into overdrive, speeding the rest of the way to Derry because he thought if he could just _get there_ , that he would remember it all. All the memories could come back, and he would find Stan, and find out what happened to Georgie, and expose it all, and he could move on and be happy. But he still doesn’t remember. There’s no real answers here—no real questions, maybe. They found Bev, they remember her now. They know something is taking kids and killing them—probably aliens—and it took Georgie, and they ran into it at some point—he thinks—and then the suited men stepped in and did something to them. He doesn’t know what else there is to find out, except maybe the little details in between. What else is there to remember?

“Is there an-n-nything else we could be doing?” he adds gingerly. 

Richie swallows hard and shrugs. “I don’t know.” He sighs and stands up, tucking his badge into his jacket. “Why don’t you go down and recheck the bottom floor? The spots we missed. I’ll continue to the top and check. That way, we can cover it quicker and meet up with the others. Reevaluate from there.”

(When they’d first found the FBI, and entered the Academy together, Bill had kind of expected them to be partners. To work the X-Files together. But then he’d left—caught flack from his superiors, got his file fucked with, dropped out of his own accord and married Audra and started writing, novels and conspiracy blogs with Mike that would turn into _The Lone Gunmen_ when Ben showed up—and Richie kept going. It’s strange to think about, how things could have gone. Where they stand now.) 

He wipes his forehead and says, “That s-s-s-sounds good,” holding back a flinch.

So they split, Bill going down and Richie going up. He checks the platforms they’ve already hit before reaching the bottom floor. Then he walks around the hot water tank three times, checking under platforms and in strange crevices, and calling Stan’s name. Above, he can hear Richie doing the same. There’s no sign of Stan anywhere.

After a few minutes, Bill loses his resolve. Sits abruptly on the stairs and hisses, “ _Fuck_ ,” shoving his face into his hands. He feels like he could scream, or cry; he resists the urge to punch the metal wall. He doesn’t know what else to do, where else to go and look. He goes over what Eddie told them in his mind again—Stan stopped answering Patty, split before his second honeymoon in Argentina, left a note that said, _I have to go home._ Where else is home? Stan hates Derry as much as the rest of them, why would he come back here? Patty said he wasn’t with his parents, at least that’s what Eddie said, and Bill knows Stan, knows that he wouldn’t lie and run off and leave Patty. But he doesn’t know where he went. And he doesn’t know where to look. And he doesn’t know how to protect them, when he didn’t protect Georgie, and he didn’t protect Beverly, and he didn’t protect Stan. What is he supposed to do? 

He sits like that for a minute, in the silence of the Standpipe, outside of Richie’s footsteps above. Sits like that until he hears a scurry of footsteps—not above him, but behind him. Footsteps and giggling, and a little voice rasping, “ _Bill_.”

It’s irrational, but Bill immediately surges to his feet at the sound and calls, “Stan?” There’s no answer. He turns around, looking all around him, but Stan is not there. He is alone, as far as he can tell, at the bottom of the Standpipe.

Until the voice speaks again. It’s different this time—it’s smaller, and it’s scared, and when it speaks, it becomes clear that this is not Stan. The voice says, “Billy?” sounding on the verge of tears, and with that, Bill knows who it is.

He whirls immediately, and finds a small shape standing under the stairs. A small shape illuminated only by a bright yellow slicker, the kind Georgie wore the day he went missing. The shape is too small to be Stan, or any of the others—it’s the size of a seven-year old boy. And it’s impossible, it’s twenty-seven years later, Georgie wouldn’t be this small if he had survived, but the hope that Bill has clung to, that his brother is still alive, could still be saved, rises. He whispers, “G-G-Georgie?” and tries not to hope too deeply.

“You came back, Billy,” Georgie says, and Bill still can’t see him clearly, but he takes a step towards him in the shadows. “Even though you stopped looking for me.”

A lump builds in Bill’s throat, tears stinging the back of his eyes. “I’ve n-n-n-never stopped looking for you, Georgie,” he says, and he steps towards his brother.

“All this time, you could’ve been looking for me.” Georgie’s voice rises with hurt. “You’ve spent all this time looking for government conspiracies and aliens… when you could’ve been looking for _me_.”

Bill shakes his head rapidly, denying it, frozen in place, unable to go and hug his brother even though that’s all he wants to do. “No, Georgie, no, I w-w-w… I was l-l-l-l-l-l—” he tries, but he cannot get the words out, can’t make it through the sentence even though this hasn’t happened in years. _I was looking for you the whole time,_ he wants to say, but he can’t, he can’t get it out, he is going to cry.

“If you’d looked a little harder, you would’ve found me,” Georgie says, indignant. “You would’ve found me, Billy, you could’ve told them what happened to me! We could have floated together.”

Bill freezes at those words. His eyes are still glued to the figure of Georgie in the shadows, but his mind immediately goes somewhere else. Standing in a basement, water up to his ankles. Something shouting at him. _You’ll float, too!_ He thinks involuntarily of tractor beams and lights in the sky. “Wh-wh-what, Georgie?” he stammers out. 

“I floated. We all float here, Billy,” says Georgie—says the thing that isn’t Georgie. It can’t be Georgie, because the voice is dropping, shriveling, decaying. “Don’t you want to float, too?”

Bill shakes his head immediately, irrationally, so hard his neck hurts. Far off, he thinks he can hear his friends screaming in the woods. “Y-y-you’re not G-G-Georgie,” he tries, and takes a step back. 

“You knew the truth about what happened to me all along, Billy,” the thing says, its voice dropping deeper. It steps towards him, one step and then another, its movements janky and uneven. “You knew it the whole time.”

“N-no,” Bill stammers, stepping further back.

“I floated,” the thing says, and it steps out into the faint moonlight. It’s Georgie and not Georgie—Georgie as he might look today—Georgie rotting, bones and decomposing skin, missing an eye, arm ending jaggedly, hair matted and falling out, dressed in the tatters of his rain slicker. It’s not him, only something that looks like him. Bill tries to tell himself that, but it’s still Georgie—Georgie rotting, Georgie dead. Georgie when it was too late to save him. “I floated,” It says, “and you’ll float, too.”

Bill shakes his head, shuts his eyes and bites back a whimper. He can’t look, can’t scream, can’t run. Can’t scream for help from Richie, can’t tell this thing to go away, or to bring his brother back. Can’t do anything but stand there and shake, in the wake of Not-Georgie’s rattly little laughter, shake his head and cover his eyes like a kid and wonder if he was foolish, all this time, for thinking Georgie could still be alive. If he’s failed his brother all over again by not looking harder. “No,” he whispers, “no no no…”

Something taps him on the shoulder. A hand, falling heavily, raps Bill on the shoulder, and Bill turns instinctively, wondering too late if it’s a bad idea, if it’s going to be Georgie again, or another monster with a false face, instead of Richie or one of the others.

It’s none of the above. It’s a strange man behind Bill, looming over him a bit, a funny, sinister grin on his face.

Things happen too fast. Bill opens his mouth to ask who he is, and the man says, “Hi, B-B-B-B-Billy.” And just as Bill realizes with abrupt horror who he is looking at, the man swings something at him, catching him right in the forehead. Everything goes black.

\---

Mike knows that something is wrong when he hears the whispers. The whispers that he hasn’t heard in years, but that are as familiar to him as anything. It's the whispers he heard as shouts in his nightmares for his entire childhood. He has a sudden memory that he isn't sure whether or not he recalled before: wheeling his bike through the alley behind the butcher shop. The chained-up door rattling, arms pushing their way out. His parents' arms. His parents' voices, calling for help. It used this against him before. 

Mike does his best to ignore it: the sound of scrabbling fingers, the whispers of, " _Mike! Mike, help us!_ " through the trees. He stiffens his shoulders and bites the inside of his cheek and keeps calling for Stan alongside Eddie. But the whispers get harder and harder to ignore. The sounds of shuffling footsteps through the underbrush, the sounds of fingers scraping against the trees. The smell of smoke that Mike knows he has to be imagining, because the woods are still dark. It's impossible not to notice these things, just like it was impossible when he was a kid, when the most he could do was run down the hall and pull the covers over his head and pretend he was somewhere else. 

Bill thinks it's aliens, here in Derry, and a part of Mike has always believed that. But another part of him has his doubts. He supposes there's no reason it _couldn't_ be aliens—just because it doesn't fit the stereotypical abduction tropes in pop culture, or the stories they've collected from the Internet and members of MUFON—but it's always seemed like something different to him. Something more evil, malicious; something that has been here since before Derry existed. That's what his father believed; Mike could see it in his writings, the passages he wrote between collected research. One passage that has always stuck with him is this: _There is something bad here, something that wants to hurt the town and the people in it, and that does so cyclically. And the government doesn't want people to know about it._

Mike knows his family has had their differing opinions, but his father never talked about them to Mike when he was a kid, too young for conspiracy theories, and his grandfather flat-out refused to talk about it at all. Mike thinks a part of his grandfather never forgave him for everything that happened that summer. For pushing too hard, for getting tangled up with men who could ruin his life. And maybe Mike would regret it more himself, but he can't bring himself to. These are the things his father was looking for, that never got brought to light. Mike doesn't want to stand by and let these things continue to get buried. He wants to expose what his father couldn't, what no one has ever tried. 

He asked his grandfather once, when he was older, what he thought this thing was. He never talked about the gaps in his memories, but he did wonder, often, what killed those kids. What did he see that gave him visions of his dead parents, that he chased alongside his friends, that the suited men took his memory of? He genuinely wanted to know; he still wants that, all these years later. 

His grandfather said that he didn’t know. That maybe it was best not to ask. And Mike had known he was talking about that summer, about the time he woke up in his room with days gone from his memory, and had come down to find his grandparents furious and hurt, and spent the rest of the summer mucking manure and only leaving the farm for deliveries.

Maybe this thing, in the woods around him, is the thing that they saw that summer, or maybe something else entirely, but it’s wearing the face of his parents, and after a few minutes, Mike is unable to take it anymore. He steps a little closer to Eddie and whispers, “Eddie? Are you… hearing anything?”

“No,” Eddie says, a little distracted, pointing his flashlight at the leaves above them. “Can you hear something?”

“Yes,” Mike says. “But it isn’t Stan.”

Just then, the shrieks get louder, near scream on the other sides of the trees, begging for his help. The smell of smoke fills his nose, and Mike shudders and swallows back the urge to throw up.

Eddie’s eyes widen, and he turns towards Mike slowly. “I… I think I do hear something,” he says quietly. “Something’s calling your name.”

Mike bites back a shudder and nods vigorously. “And the smoke,” he says. “There’s smoke here. Do you smell it?”

“No,” Eddie says uneasily, wiping one hand on the leg of his pants like it’s sweaty. “But… I think I hear sheep.”

Mike hears it, too, suddenly: the sound he knows from the barn he spent most of his childhood in. The eerie sound of _baa_ -ing, just below the voices. 

Eddie’s eyes are wide, almost wild with familiar fear. “I… I saw something earlier, Mike,” he says quietly. “Earlier today. In the park bathroom. It talked to me. It _touched_ me.” 

Mike’s eyes are wide too, now, his stomach turning. He’s thinking of answers and unasked questions, how badly he always used to say he wanted to see whatever took Georgie that summer. Maybe that’s because he thought it was aliens, or something else that might be harmless; maybe his mind was too far separated from the horrible things that they saw that summer. Maybe he didn’t know what he was saying. “W-what was it?” he asks quietly, under the growing sound of the sheep and the voices, under the shade of the thickening smoke. The woods are on fire, the logical part of his brain snaps, but he can’t react, can’t bring himself to move. “What’d you see?”

Eddie shakes his head, his face cast in odd shadows from his flashlight. The flashlight in Mike’s hand abruptly begins to flicker. “I don’t know,” he says quietly. “But… I think it might be here now.”

Behind Eddie, Mike hears an odd sound. A deep voice, growling, or maybe laughing. A voice that sounds a little unhinged, and desperately familiar, like a forgotten nightmare. The voice laughs and intones suddenly, louder than every sound around them, “ _You think?_ ”

Before either of them can react, flames spark up suddenly around them, rising out of nowhere in the woods. Mike yelps and stumbles away, dropping the flashlight to the ground just as it flickers out. Eddie grabs his arm and stumbles with him, the two of them moving away though unable to take their eyes off the rising flames that seemingly came from nowhere. The smoke thickens, draping around them like a fog, and Mike’s hand closes instinctively around Eddie’s sleeve. He wants to say something about getting out of there, but he doesn’t think he can speak. He’s coughing now, raising his arm to cover his nose from the smoke; a part of him insists that this can’t be real, but it _feels_ real, it looks and smells real, and he can feel the heat inches away. He’s four years old again and crying on the other side of a hot door.

Eddie’s breathing raggedly beside him, in a way that suggests he needs his inhaler. “Mike…” he says unevenly, but he doesn’t finish the thought. 

Mike’s eyes are glued to the smoke because he sees it now: there is something moving on the other side of the smoke. A silhouette of something that could be a man if it wasn’t for the way it was shaped: its limbs are at odd angles, its joints pointed oddly, its hair puffed up in a strangely styled way. It starts laughing, there beyond the smoke, and Eddie gasps out, “Clown,” in a breathless, wheezy voice. “A monster that looks like a clown.”

The thing laughs and laughs, its voice rising, and Mike can’t run, can’t look away. The voice says, “Miss me?” And then it moves. Turns into a dark shape lunging at them, and Mike and Eddie find a way to scream.

They run then. Turn and run through the smoke, through the heat, towards the edge of the woods where they parked the van, and Mike is thinking a strange combination of, _I’ve got to tell Bill and Ben about this_ , and _I shouldn’t have wanted this, I shouldn’t have looked for this, I shouldn’t have come home_. They run, deranged laughter right on their heels, until Mike hears the voices of Ben and Bev rising above it, calling their names in the dark. Eddie starts to slow then, and Mike finds the courage to look back, and finds nothing. No flames, no smoke, no dark shape, no sheep. Nothing. Nothing but dark trees.

They meet up with Ben and Bev after a few paces, both of them shaken and pale. Bev is rubbing one hand on her hoodie like she’s trying to wipe something away, leaving a dark red smear behind. “Are you guys okay? We heard you screaming,” Ben says, breathing hard like he’s trying to catch his breath.

“We’re… fine,” Eddie says, but he says it like he’s uncertain. He’s still gasping for air, in the middle of an attack.

Mike takes a deep breath, wipes his brow, and says, “We saw something.”

Bev looks grim, even in the dark of the woods—none of them have their flashlights anymore. “We saw something, too,” she says. “It’s found us.”

“Or maybe it always knew where we were,” Mike murmurs.

“W-we need to get out of here,” Eddie says unevenly. He retrieves his inhaler and shoves it in his mouth.

“We need to get Richie and Bill,” Ben says. 

Eddie’s wheezing abruptly quickens until he pulls the trigger. His breathing starts to slow, and he immediately starts back for the edge of the woods, towards the tower of the Standpipe. Mike and the others go along with him, without a word. 

\---

Bill’s calls for Stan fade out after a while. Richie, who has walked the top platform three times (as well as the upper staircase around the water tank) and even peered out the windows, assumes he’s given up, too. Frustration is rising like anger inside Richie because Stan is _obviously not here_ , and it feels like they’re just wasting time. Even if they don’t know where else to look. 

He’s just about to head back down and find Bill when he hears a thump from downstairs. A loud thump, that sends chills shooting down Richie's spine. 

Nerves rise and he whirls immediately, calling, " _Bill?_ " at the top of his lungs. "Bill? Are you okay?"

There is no answer. Nothing but quiet from the levels below, the hollow, cavernous space of the Standpipe. "Bill!" Richie shouts, worry edging into his voice. He moves for the railing, leaning over it, and calls, "Bill, come on! You sleeping on the job? Answer me, man!"

There's no sound from below. But somewhere behind him, a voice suddenly speaks: " _Richie_." 

Richie whirls around, scanning the floor around him. It seems empty at first—nothing but shadows on all sides—but on the third scan, he sees something. A small shape in the dark. Something familiar. Some _one_ familiar. 

"Richie," it says again, and it's certainly familiar, but it's _impossible._ Because the kid who that voice belongs to grew up a long time ago, and is currently out in the woods looking for Stan. 

"What the fucking shit," Richie hisses, either scared or furious. (Come back later and ask him which.)

"You were supposed to _help_ me, Richie," the thing says. The thing that looks like kid Eddie but is not him, because that is impossible. "You let them take me!"

"Fuck this. You're not Eddie," Richie snaps, turning and stepping towards the stairs. He doesn’t have very much patience for imitations—not after being in Derry for two days, and especially not after a case of weird Siren things about a year ago. They at least had the courtesy to trick him with _Adult_ Eddie. He can't deal with this shit, he needs to go find Bill and make sure he's okay. 

"You would _know_ , wouldn't you, Richie?"

The voice is different now. Not Eddie, kid or adult. Deeper now, with something like laughter in it, and it's fucking Pavlov, it sends shivers down Richie's spine immediately. Makes him freeze in place, quivering with fear like a kid again. It's coming from somewhere behind him, or maybe beside him, but he can't make himself turn to look. He desperately does not want to see whatever is there. 

The thing giggles, and Richie can instantly hear the earlier words of Ms. Winterbarger. _A monster that looks like a clown._ "Oh, Richie, you're all grown up," It says. "But you haven't changed one bit. Look at you. Still keeping dirty little secrets."

"Jesus," Richie hisses, squeezing his eyes shut. He should run, he should turn away, he should reach for his gun and shoot whatever this is, he should go find Bill, but he can't move. Can't turn away from whatever this is. He is frozen here and all he can think is, _We shouldn't have looked for this. We shouldn't have looked._ He doesn't remember much, but he remembers this suddenly: this was what he didn't want to find. 

"Poor Richie," the thing cooes in an odd, warped voice. "Poor, poor Richie. Still running. Still hiding. Still attached to the hip of Big Billy, running to do his bidding. Still wanting things he shouldn't have, still keeping secrets. Have you _told_ them yet, Richie?" The voice is right in his ear, its breath rancid. "Have you told them why you joined this silly quest?” Its voice lowers to a whisper. “That you've spent all these years looking for someone who will _never_ love you back?"

Richie's throat tightens abruptly, rearing back as if he's been slapped. "That's not…" he tries, but he can't get any further than that. 

It is still speaking, nearly laughing giddily. "Twenty-four years of looking and he only came back because he was assigned to. How's that for a success story? What would they _think_ of you, Richie? What would they think if they _knew_? If they knew what you were?" 

"Fuck," Richie wheezes, his mind full of the empty Kaspbrak house, the limp _For Sale_ sign in the front yard, the postcard with Eddie's scrawled handwriting. _I wanted to say goodbye,_ it said. _I'm really going to miss you. You're my best friend._ He's been pushing it all down for twenty-seven years. Trying not to read into things. He absurdly wants to cry. "Fuck… fuck—fuck you. _Fuck_ you." 

"You've been chasing this for twenty-seven years, Richie. Was it _worth_ it?" The voice takes on a sharper tone, growing lower, deeper. More along the lines of a growl. "Chasing someone who doesn't care? Hiding behind your dirty little secret, surrounded by people who don't take you seriously? Who don't _care_?" 

There are footsteps all around him, drawing closer, moving towards him, and Richie can't breathe. Can't move, can't run, can't scream. The footsteps move closer. His hand reaches for his gun and finds nothing, just as the voice speaks again. Growls, "Was it worth it to come all this way just to _die_?"

A dark shape lunges at him, a blur of fur and teeth and claws and glowing yellow eyes, and Richie can finally scream. He fumbles for his gun and loses his grip, sends it tumbling to the ground just as the shape smashes into him. He hits the ground himself and immediately scrambles back, one arm held up over his face for protection. 

It's no use. It's clear in the next moment that the shape is gone, even in the dark. He's alone now. 

Richie is still breathing raggedly, huddled on the ground, arms over his face. " _Fuck_ ," he gasps through gritted teeth, and presses one hand over his face. He remembers, now, what he wanted to forget: that he never wanted to remember this part of it. What It could do. That It could _hurt_ him, in more ways than one.

He thinks he either needs to run like hell or not move in a million years, but then he remembers Bill, and feels panic shoot through him again. He stumbles to his feet, reaching for his gun, but he can't find it. He's trying to find it when he turns and sees the man standing behind him, looming over him. 

The man smiles, cruelly, and Richie knows him immediately. "Hi, Trashmouth," he says. And then his hand goes whooshing through the air, something oddly shaped in it, and pain explodes in Richie's cheek. 

He stumbles back, blurting fiercely and panickedly, "Jesus fuck!" 

His hand flies to his cheek and feels a knife handle protruding there. There's a sting of copper filling his mouth. "Fucking Christ! You fucking stabbed me in the face!" he spits incredulously. 

Henry Bowers seems unaffected. He's stepping closer to Richie, serial killer vibe unaffected. Fucking childhood bully all over again. Fucking serial killer. "They told me to find you," he says. "They told me to kill you. Every single one of you little fucking Losers."

Richie's hand fumbles uselessly at the hilt in his cheek. He can practically hear Eddie's voice in his head, telling him not to pull the knife out, but he can't really fucking do that, not when he's being approached by an insane childhood bully and he doesn't have his gun. _How's that for a unique situation, Dr. K?_ "Wh—wh—what," he stammers, unable to get the words out. His fingers slip on the bloody handle. "What the _fuck_ did you do to Bill?" 

Bowers ignores the question. "They said they'd let me go if I killed you all," he says. "Every last one of you. Too bad they didn't know—I'da fucking done it for anything!" He bursts into wild laughter at that, hysterical, unhinged laughter, nearly bent in half. 

Something cold runs through Richie's blood then, something between fear and fury. He stops trying to back up. He freezes in place. He hears Patty's voice again, telling them Stan is missing. And he says in a low, dangerous voice, "You took Stan."

Bowers seems unaffected. "They told me. All of them told me."

"What did you do to Stan?" Richie can't remember the last time he was this scared, that he was this angry; he's thinking about Bill down there, and the others out in the woods, about the possibility that they're hurt or dead or… he can't linger over it. But _Stan._ Stan, who has been missing for a few days. Stan, who was bullied as much as the rest of them, who was just as scared as all of them. Stan, who Bowers abandoned in the woods as a kid; Stan, who got a black eye and a broken nose in the fifth grade because of Bowers. Stan, who is _missing._

Bowers is still muttering under his breath, "They let me out. The men let me out, and they told me what to do, but _it_ knew first… It told me to kill them all…"

"Stan!" Richie shouts. "Stanley Uris! He's missing, he left without a word! What the _fuck_ did you do to him?" 

He surges forward without thinking, but Bowers is faster than him. He jerks forward abruptly and yanks his knife out of Richie's face. Richie yelps, stunned, and stumbles backwards, tripping over something and tumbling to the ground. He thinks he really is crying, his vision blurred with tears, wondering if this is it and Bowers finally got them, got Stanley and got Bill, and got Mike and Ben and Bev and Eddie down in the woods, or is going to. He scrambles backwards and sends whatever he tripped over clattering with him. 

Bowers looms over him, knife held up menacingly, and realization shoots through Richie then. "It told me to kill you all," he growls. "All of them did. And I said I'd do it. I wanted to do it, all this time, I've wanted for thirty years…" 

He lifts the knife just as Richie closes his hand around his gun. He swings upwards abruptly and catches Bowers in the forehead just as Bowers thrusts downward. 

For a few seconds, Richie thinks the downward motion of the knife is gonna stab him anyway, and he just hopes he got Bowers hard enough that the rest of them will be able to get away. But the knife drops off to Richie's side just as Bowers crumples on top of him, unconscious. 

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck _fuck_ ," Richie hisses, shoving Bowers aside, stumbling to his feet. He has to check on Bill, has to find the others—has to make sure he isn't too late, but what if he is, what if he's lost them all, Stan, Bill, Ben Bev, Mike, Eds… He rushes for the stairs, stumbling in his desperation, praying that his friends are still alive and that Bowers stays out long enough for all of them to get away. 

\---

The first thing they see in the Standpipe is Bill, sprawled unconscious across the floor, a pretty impressive bump on his head. "What the fuck?" Mike hisses in surprise. 

Eddie immediately goes down on his knees beside Bill to check on him. "I'm a medical doctor, I can help him," he says automatically, but it comes out shaky; this isn’t just anybody, this is _Bill_ he's talking about. It's odd to be doing this at all without Richie hovering over him and whispering, _Everyone knows you're a medical doctor, Eds,_ and then he thinks of Richie and wants to throw up. Where the fuck _is_ he? 

He presses two fingers to Bill's neck and sighs in relief when he finds Bill's pulse strong. "Thank fuck, he's fine," he says. "He might have a concussion, but he'll be fine otherwise." 

Ben crouches beside him to get a better look, shifting Bill so he's lying flat on his back. "What happened to him? The— _It_ wouldn't do this, would it?" He looks between them with confusion. 

"No," Bev says uneasily, "I don't think it would."

"Where's Richie?" Mike asks. 

Eddie's stomach twists again, and he stumbles to his feet and shouts, "Richie?" 

Panic's rising inside him, irrationally or not—picturing Richie passed out on the floor like Bill, or worse—and he's ready to race up the stairs looking for him when he hears Richie's voice shouting back, "Eds?" It sounds strangely, unnervingly garbled, and Eddie would be worried all over again if it weren't for the pounding, descending footsteps of Richie coming down to meet them. 

He appears a minute later, gun in hand, a weird, dark smear on his cheek that Eddie thinks is a bruise. But it becomes obvious that it's not a bruise a minute later, when Richie starts talking, and blood starts oozing out of his mouth and over his cheek. "Oh thank god, thank fucking god, you guys are okay," he says, still garbled. He wipes his mouth with his sleeve. "Shit, is Bill—Bill's okay, right?"

"Richie, what the _fuck_ ?" Eddie rushes forward, hands uselessly fumbling at Richie. It looks like someone, or something, has stabbed him in the cheek; it doesn't look bad, but there is blood fucking everywhere, and it's unnerving. He pokes uselessly at a dry spot at the top of Richie's cheek and then yanks his hands back. "What _happened_? Are you okay?"

"Bowers is back," Richie says, wiping his chin again. "And he hasn't fucking changed. Seriously, guys, is Bill okay?"

"He's okay, he's just knocked out," Mike says. "Wha—did you say _Bowers_ is back?"

"Yep. Henry fucking Bowers. Stabbed me in the face and said that the monster and the suited men sent him to kill us all. I thought you guys were fucking dead." Richie's eyes shift around the room from Bill to the others to Eddie, who is still staring at the cheek wound. He reaches for it unconsciously, and Richie catches his wrist in one hand. "Hey, c'mon, Dr. K. I'm fine," he says, something odd in his tone. 

"Tell me that when you're not fucking spitting blood, Rich," Eddie snaps, although he isn't really upset. He smudges blood off the underside of Richie's jaw and says, "You're gonna need _stitches_ , Richie, Jesus Christ."

"Richie, is Bowers…" Ben, standing from his spot by Bill, falters. "Is Bowers… still… at large?" 

"I knocked him out with my gun. Which seems like suitable revenge on the part of Bill," Richie says. "Pretty sure he's still alive, though, so maybe we should…" He jabs a finger towards the door and clicks his tongue, messily. 

"Bowers?" Bill mutters from the ground, groggily. 

They all turn towards him, Ben and Mike kneeling again. "Don't try and sit up," Eddie says immediately. "Do you know where we are? Do you know your name?"

Bill ignores him and sits up anyway, leaning heavily on Ben as he goes. "Bowers is h-h-here," he says, a little groggily, and grabs the tail of Mike's shirt for emphasis. "He… he _hit_ me."

"Yeah, no fucking kidding," Richie says, laughing a little. "Jesus Christ, Bill, I thought you were dead." 

Bill blinks blearily up at them. "Richie, what t-t-the fuck, are you ok-kay?"

"We should probably have this conversation in the car," Bev says, with a pointed look at the stairs. "Bill, are you okay? Can you stand?"

"Just a headache," Bill says with a wince, and stands leaning between Mike and Ben. "I-I'm okay."

The six of them hurry out to the car, Bill sprawling out in the back, Richie pressing fast food napkins Ben offers him to his cheek. He and Eddie have a brief argument over whether or not to arrest Bowers. Richie points out that they don't have handcuffs or their rental car, the cops are already on their ass, and stuffing a murderous bully who is specifically hunting all of them in the back of this van is a horrible idea. He also brings up the point of the suited men again. "I think they let Bowers go to kill us," he says. "What are they gonna do if we re-arrest him?" Eddie doesn't exactly agree, but he's also not 100% up for putting Bowers in the van with the rest of them, who all look panicked at the prospect. So they don't go back for Bowers. 

"Guys, I don't like to consider this prospect," Richie adds, packing the napkins against his cheek, "but… what if Bowers took Stan?" 

Eddie flinches automatically at the idea, and the others look shocked; he immediately wants to deny the prospect, but he can't, can't stop wondering if it might _be_ possible. "I asked him about it, and he didn't confirm or deny it. He just kept babbling on about killing us all or some shit," Richie adds, voice sharp. "How the _fuck_ is this guy still obsessed with us?"

Ben's face is sheet white, and Bev is avoiding people's eyes. Mike says, "Bowers was incarcerated in Maine, Richie. I'll check, but I doubt that he would've been able to get down to Georgia and back without getting caught. Not to mention that he probably wouldn't bother covering his tracks." But even _he_ doesn't sound sure.

"He could have if the suited men were helping him," Richie mutters, but he doesn't press it. 

"I saw G-G-Georgie," Bill mumbles. They all look over to where he's sprawled out on one of the bench seats, holding a water bottle to the lump on his head like an ice pack. "He was… here. In t-there. He t-t- _talked_ to me."

"Bill, Georgie…" Richie starts, and then stops, pulling the napkins away and crumpling them in one hand instead. 

"Georgie's dead, Bill," Eddie says abruptly, startling himself. It's the point they've been picking around for years, that they _never_ touched as a kid, but a part of him thinks this should be obvious. It's been twenty-seven years; even if Georgie survived the initial attack, he would likely be dead by now. No one's come forward with information in years. 

Bill draws back like he's been hit, and Richie and Bev are looking at him oddly. Guilty, Eddie swallows hard, and adds, as gently as he can, "We all saw something out there, Bill. It's fucking with us. Whatever you saw… that wasn't the real Georgie."

Bill takes an unsteady breath and says, "R-right. I know." He shuts his eyes and lays his head back against the seat. 

In the lengthy, awkward silence that follows, as they adjust their places—Ben and Bev in the front seats, starting the car; Eddie habitually kind of rotating between Bill and Richie to try and assess their medical situations (Richie says, "Remember, Dr. K, we're _living. A-liiive._ Got it?")—Mike is the first to really speak loudly. He says, "You guys… know how we've always sort of considered this… thing to be aliens? That these cases were abductions, and we might be abductees?"

Eddie thinks of Richie saying, _Do you think we were abducted?_ down in the woods. From the driver's seat, Ben says, "Yeah."

"I don't think It’s aliens anymore," Mike says. 

No one really speaks after that, not until they get back to the hotel. If there's anything you could really say to that in the first place, Eddie isn't sure what it is. 

\---

They go back to the hotel. If there’s something else they’re supposed to do, in the middle of the night, with Bill’s probable concussion and Richie bleeding from the face and absolutely no leads, Richie doesn’t know what it is. So they go back to the hotel, stopping briefly to get takeout from Jade of the Orient only after Ben gently convinces them that they should eat something, even if none of them are really hungry. And they may not arrest Bowers, but Eddie insists on calling the cops with an anonymous tip or something, in the hopes that Bowers won’t just run around town skewering people, or find them again. It’s a good point. They have Ben make the call and leave it at that, and hope it’s enough to take care of things for now. 

When they pass the baseball field, there’s a whole gaggle of police officers there, flashing lights and everything. A woman is standing by the cop car, wiping her eyes frantically with a tissue. Richie pokes Eddie and gestures grimly to the window, says, “Something’s happened.” Maybe someone else going missing. Maybe someone else was found. He doesn’t really want to think about it either way. 

Back at the hotel, the guys get a couple rooms, and Eddie offers Bev his room, since he hasn’t used it yet and she doesn’t really want her name on a register. But they all pile into Richie’s room at first. Mike sets up camp at the table by the window with laptops and a box of eggrolls. Bev sits beside him with Ben’s laptop, presumably to do some research of her own. Ben takes on the task of calling Patty—who has been texting them incrementally—and giving her what little updates he can. Bill is examined by Eddie, diagnosed miraculously with _not_ a concussion, and sits on Richie’s bed to call Audra. And Richie… Richie just kind of hovers on the edge of the room, avoiding people’s eyes. (He’s kind of afraid to try and eat anything.) He feels like if he has to think too hard about everything that’s happened, he’ll lose it. Finding out one of your best friends has gone missing, being taunted by an evil werewolf entity thingy about your secret crush, and getting stabbed in the face by a fucking childhood bully takes it out of you. He’s fucking exhausted. He’s trying not to think about the shit that the kid-Eddie-werewolf thing said, trying not to picture the postcard tucked under old papers and files in his briefcase. How the fuck did he get here?

He checks his messages. There’s a lot of emails and texts from their pissed off boss, and some missed calls to boot. The message is the one Eddie relayed: Do not touch this. Come home immediately. As if they’re gonna do any of that. Richie wouldn’t be surprised if the whole fucking thing is gonna get him fired. What’s maybe more surprising is how little he cares. 

“Richie,” Mike says, and Richie looks up. Mike’s shooting him a reassuring look over the screen of his laptop. “Bowers escaped from Juniper Hill early this morning. There’s no way he could’ve gotten to Stan in Georgia, a couple of days ago, or even before Patty got home. He couldn’t have flown or anything. The only way Bowers could’ve gotten to Stan is if they ran into each other here in Derry.”

“Which he could’ve done,” Richie mumbles, but the fact _is_ reassuring. Maybe it’s silly, but in his mind, he keeps insisting that if Stan was just wandering around Derry, they would have seen him already. Maybe Bowers really didn’t get to him. “Thanks, Mikey,” he adds gratefully, and Mike smiles thinly and looks back to his laptop. 

“Hey, Rich, let me take a look at this,” Eddie says suddenly, sitting down in front of him on the bed. Richie can already feel himself tensing; he tells himself sternly to relax and turns towards Eddie, mentally reminding himself that he’ll have to deal with Eddie hovering and rambling about infection if he doesn’t let him do this now.

“No sewing me up, Dr. K,” he says. “Just slap a bandage on there, and we’ll get it checked out when things are less fucking insane.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Eddie’s eyes flash in the way that means they’re usually in for a long winded argument. “You have a _hole_ in your _face_ , Richie, do you think that’s just going away? Magic wave of a wand, no more hole?”

“It’s stopping bleeding,” Richie points out tiredly. A little voice in his head reminds him that he’s been awake since like three in the morning. How has it been less than a day since meeting up with Bev again?

“It needs stitches, Rich, it’s not just gonna fill in on its own. Just bandaging it could lead to infection, or irritating it worse…” Eddie reaches out to touch Richie’s jaw, move his head to examine the wound, and Richie flinches. Involuntarily, he flinches, and pulls away a little from Eddie’s hand. He half-shuts his eyes and avoids Eddie’s gaze, because it’s fucking stupid but he can’t stop thinking about what the monster said earlier. _Someone who will never love you back._ He’s already internalized it, that stupid fucking fear from when he was thirteen all over again. Sure, they’re partners; sure, they share a bed like they’re on a never-ending sleepover, and sure, they get kinda touchy when one of them has almost died or something, but what the fuck does that mean? 

Eddie’s staring at him kind of weird, almost like he’s hurt. (Sure, Richie thinks, Dr. Eddie Kaspbrak _lives_ for this shit. It’s totally normal. Eddie probably had his fingers all up in Bill’s hair when checking his concussion; isn’t that what doctors do?) Richie clears his throat a little and says, “Your speciality is corpses, Agent Spaghetti. You ain’t getting anywhere near me with that shit. Just… do whatever you did for Ben when Bowers cut him up.” 

Behind Eddie, Richie can see Ben flinch a little, and Bev looks towards him in concern. Great, one more thing to worry about. He’s _amazing_ at poking sore spots with people. Special Agent Spooky Trashmouth Tozier, that’s him.

“Okay,” Eddie says tightly. “Sure. Fine. But don’t come crying to me when you’ve got an infection, okay?” 

He digs in his first aid kit and tapes a square shaped bandage thingy on Richie’s cheek. Richie miraculously manages not to flinch the entire time. He’ll call that a victory. Sure thing. 

Ben hangs up the phone just then and looks grimly out over the room. “Any news on Stan?” Bev asks, sitting up a little straighter in her chair. 

“No, not yet. At least not from Patty,” says Ben. He sighs a little and adds grimly, “Something else has happened, though.”

They all look towards Ben then. Mike looks up from his computer, Eddie turns away from Richie. Bill murmurs something to Audra and lowers the phone.

“The government’s there,” Ben says. “Suited men, it sounds like. Patty said they wouldn’t say what agency they were from. But they’re giving her the usual spiel.”

“T-they told her Stan’s dead?” Bill blurts, his face white with worry. 

Ben shakes his head immediately. “No, no, not that. But they told her that he probably ran off. It looks like he packed a bag, and he took his wallet and his cell phone with him. They’re insisting that it seems like he just left her, and that she shouldn’t look for him, and should try to get back to normal life.”

Anger rises somewhere in Richie, the automatic anger that comes with these fucking bastards. He’s back in Bill’s pantry listening to Mrs. Denbrough cry as men threaten her to get her to give up on Georgie. Stan had been the one to stop Bill from leaving the pantry; Stan had known. And now they’re fucking burying Stan. “She didn’t buy that shit, did she?” he snaps, balling and unballing his fist by his side. 

“No, she didn’t. But she is worried. She wants to come up here and help us look,” says Ben.

“She can’t do that,” says Eddie. “It’s too dangerous. You told her she couldn’t, didn’t you?”

“She said you’d say that, actually. I don’t think she’s coming yet. But if we don’t find Stan soon, I’m not sure that we can stop her.”

“We n-n-n-need to find him,” Bill says, his voice hard. “We need to… Mike, have you f-found anything?”

“I’ve been trying to figure out how to hack into Stan’s phone, but I don’t have anything yet,” Mike says. “Did Patty say anything about tracking Stan?”

“Law enforcement won’t consent to tracking his phone, and the government is blocking that idea anyway. Says it’s unnecessary. Patty said she looked at the bank statements, but the credit cards haven’t been used yet. She doesn’t really have any way to track him like that because they don’t usually do things like that.”

“They trust each other,” Richie mumbles. “They’re happy.”

On the table between Bev and Mike, a little styrofoam case rattles a little.

“W-w-we need to find him,” Bill says again. “Does anyone have any other id-d-d-deas of where to look? Bev? Richie? Eddie?”

“I really don’t know,” Bev says apologetically. “I don’t think I remember more things than you guys do, aside from maybe a couple different things, and the fact that I was there. I still don’t remember what this is, or where we might’ve found It. We were in the woods a lot, or the quarry.”

“We haven’t checked the clubhouse yet,” Ben offers. 

“And there’s always Stan’s parents,” Mike says. “Do they like Patty? Maybe they’d have a reason for not telling her if they’d seen Stan.”

“They l-like Patty. I rem-m-member that,” Bill says, his face twisting with frustration. 

Between Bev and Mike, the container rattles again, the sound of Styrofoam rubbing that drives Eddie absolutely nuts. Richie figures one of them must be jiggling their leg and bouncing the table or something. 

“We _were_ abducted, right?” he says, maybe a little impatient. Maybe too impatient. It’s been a long day, and he’s worried about Stan, and his entire cheek hurts, and his mouth tastes like pennies. (He should know. Bill dared him to stuff a bunch in his mouth when they were six, and then Eddie lost his mind screeching about how dirty money is, and how he could swallow one, and then he _did_ swallow one, and he paid everyone off not to tell. Hey, he was _six_.) “That’s what happened? We were abducted, and we escaped, and the suited men caught up with us? I don’t know why the fuck they didn’t kill us themselves to keep things quiet.”

“They took me and Eddie out of the picture,” Bev says quietly. “Isn’t that enough?”

Eddie flinches. The container rattles again. Ben looks miserable, setting his phone down on his knee. Mike starts tapping at his computer again.

“But wh-wh-what if we weren’t abducted?” Bill says, forehead furrowed. “What if we went l-looking for this thing ourselves?”

“Why the fuck would we do that?” Richie bites out. “Unless we were fucking nuts.”

“To keep other people from being taken,” says Bev. “Or to find the ones that had—we were looking for Georgie, remember?”

“We were looking for Georgie, not what took him. The aliens or whatever brought the kids back.” Richie balls his hands in his hair with frustration. 

“Brought them back d-d-dead,” Bill says, something of a dangerous edge in his voice.

“No shit, Big—”

“Richie, what’s your point?” Mike says abruptly, pushing his computer away. The container rattles as he does.

“What—” Richie motions wildly at the container. “What the fuck is _in_ that?”

“Fortune cookies,” Ben says simply.

“Riiight.” Richie clears his throat and shifts awkwardly. His knee bumps Eddie’s leg, and he moves his own leg away fast, but Eddie doesn’t seem to notice; he looks like he’s deep in thought. So Richie keeps going. “If we were abducted, then we must have been taken somewhere,” he says. “So—that’s where Stan would be, right?”

Ben and Mike nod a little. Bev looks at the ground, tapping her fingers on her knee.

“Okay,” says Bill. “Okay, so, where were we taken?”

“Neibolt,” Eddie says suddenly, speaking for the first time in minutes. They look up at him, and he turns to face them. “Neibolt,” he says again. “I—I heard Stan earlier today. In the mirror. He said, _You took me into Neibolt_.” 

The Styrofoam container of fortune cookies rattles again, and again, so loudly that everyone looks towards it now. It rattles and doesn’t stop rattling, a tiny earthquake that doesn’t do shit to anything else, and Mike is lifting his hand like he’s going to grab it when the container explodes. 

Shards of cookie come out, accompanied by a burst of blood that splatters Mike and Bev and Ben all across their fronts, and this is accompanied by a scream. A long, high scream like something in pain. The table is rattling like crazy. 

Bev lets out a yelp of her own and rears back from the table, crashing into Eddie, who is scrambling back himself. Ben and Mike go towards the table—Ben weaving towards Bev, Mike grabbing for the container—but the screaming only gets louder and more high-pitched, to the point where it feels like ears should be bleeding. “What the fuck?” Richie bellows, scrambling back, too, hand shooting out unconsciously for Eddie’s shoulder. 

Bill tosses Mike a pillow from the bed and Mike brings it down on the container, pressing it down like he’s trying to suffocate it. It _works_ , though; the pillowcase turns a little red with blood, but it stops spurting everywhere, and the screaming goes a little quieter and quieter until it stops. 

Mike is panting, stumbling back and wiping blood off his face, leaning against the wall. Ben and Bev are clutching at each other a little, but Bev is staring at the table, squinting at it like something important is there. Bill walks towards the table himself, looking at it with that same air of importance.

“Mikey,” Richie says, breathlessly, when he finds his voice. “That was _my_ pillow.” He finds his hand still on Eddie’s arm and pulls it away; Eddie’s still looking at him a little strangely. 

Bill and Bev exchange a look over the table and seem to come to some agreement, because Bill yanks the pillow off the top and stares at the bloody table. His face shifts when he finds what he wants. “G-g-guys,” he says, and motions them over to see what he sees.

The rest of them crowd around the table and follow the line of Bill’s hand. There were six cookies for six people, and there are now six fortunes floating in the pooled blood. Six fortunes with only one word apiece, six fortunes arranged in a very specific fashion. Six fortunes that make Richie’s throat ache, make him mutter, “Oh, _fuck_.”

They read, GUESS. STAN. COULD. NOT. MAKE. IT.

**Author's Note:**

> deep throat is an informant from s1 of the x files. his name is ridiculous, and i really put him in this fic just so i could have richie call him blow job ron. i included some references to episodes of the x files--the florida mothmen is a reference to the season 5 episode Detour, and the "case in iowa" richie references is the season 1 episode Conduit. the lone gunmen is also a self indulgent reference to the show. 
> 
> i promise bev will be in this fic lol. she is coming. 
> 
> hit me up on twitter @graceskuls and on tumblr @how-i-met-your-mulder


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